Thinking in pictures stands nearer to unconscious processes than does thinking in words, and is unquestionably older than the latter both ontogenetically and phylogenetically.Monk is not making a wild claim here, but I think he's wrong all the same. Not that I can prove it, but it seems more likely that Wittgenstein was thinking of Freud's view that behavior, including things we say, reveals something about our inner life, or even that what is visible is a picture of what is invisible. Now that's a strange idea (a picture of the invisible), but Wittgenstein did say that the body is the best picture of the soul, and souls aren't visible. I associate this way of thinking with Schopenhauer, but Freud might have picked it up from him. It's also part of ordinary language, as when we speak about the expression on someone's face. We treat smiles and frowns as not just evidence of inner states but as manifestations of those states, the happiness or whatever pushing out through the face, visible in the face. And in a sense we get the very idea of an inner from this related idea that what we see is not all there is but is an outer, a phenomenon, the showing of something.
By the way, Monk refers to a composite picture of Wittgenstein and his sisters but that picture is not the one shown in the article. The picture Monk means is this:
The Monk piece is indeed strange.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, the contrast Monk draws between thinking in words and thinking in pictures seems to me foreign to Wittgenstein. Surely this is the case in the Tractatus, where for Wittgenstein the proposition IS a picture. There probably is something interesting to do with the difference between pictures and words, but if there is anything to learn from Wittgenstein’s intuition that propositions are pictures, then the contrast is not obvious, as Monk seems to take it. Monk here is not alone. You quoted Davidson in one of your entries saying “a picture is not worth a thousand words, or any other number. Words are the wrong currency to exchange for a picture.” Again, there is an unexamined assumption about the contrast here between pictures and words--an assumption that is challenged by Wittgenstein.
Another related strange thing in Monk’s piece is how seamless it is for him to move from talk of pictures that we can actually see to talk of pictures of things like “the essence of human language.” This at least should raise a question for us: what does Wittgenstein mean by “picture”? Wittgenstein did not have a problem talking that way, but this shows that what Wittgenstein meant by “picture” is not at all what Monk takes him to mean by it. Again, this is a strangely overlooked point, not only in Monk’s discussion. And again, there is a kind of oversight here, which I think results in missing a deep point of Wittgenstein’s.
By the way, I was never clear why the Galton picture Wittgenstein did of himself and his sisters is taken to demonstrate his interest in family resemblance. I would have thought this picture can be taken to expose the “essential Wittgenstein”--what all members of the Wittgenstein family share--which goes exactly contrary to what the notion of family resemblance is supposed to reveal, namely that there might not be any such common essence.
A question: are you connecting the saying showing distinction to the body soul distinction? You are not saying this explicitly, but is your discussion of how the soul is visible in facial expressions meant to weigh against what Monk says about the showing-saying distinction? (He says: “not everything we can see and therefore not everything we can mentally grasp can be put into words.”)
And as for the question of Freud discipleship, do you have an idea what Wittgenstein meant by this?
Thanks, Reshef.
ReplyDeleteYes, I don't see why you couldn't think in pictures. I don't really know what it means to think in pictures (or to think at all, really--I mean I don't know how to give a complete and accurate account of what thinking is), but if I visualize a map and then follow it this seems like thinking, and I don't see why any words would have to be spoken in my mind as I do this. A mental picture of a map seems just as possible as a mental speech or shopping list. And maybe one could combine pictures and words in thinking. Actually, isn't that what happens all the time in daydreaming? Thinking about winning the lottery (assuming this counts as thinking) involves creating a kind of movie in one's head, with both words and pictures. Thinking about geometry might be like this too.
It's not obvious what Wittgenstein means by "picture," as you say.
As for the Galton picture, I thought Wittgenstein said that he linked such pictures with the idea of family resemblance, but it seems not. See here but also the beginning of the lecture on ethics, p. 18 of The Blue Book (which supports your view, it seems to me), the Cambridge Lectures 1932-35 pp. 34-35, and Investigations 77. (I don't mean that you should look all these references up, just that I did and it might be handy to have them listed together.) The picture Wittgenstein made obviously has to do with family resemblance--its success shows how closely members of his family resemble one another. I think it demonstrates his interest in an issue that led to his development of the idea of family resemblances. But the picture was made some time in the 1920s, before I think he really had the idea of family resemblance as we know it.
I wasn't really thinking about Monk when I talked about facial expressions, but I wouldn't say that "not everything we can see and therefore not everything we can mentally grasp can be put into words." It's not for me to say what we can or cannot do, but I see no reason why we can't put everything we can see into words.
And as for Freud, I don't know what Wittgenstein meant.
The notion of it being difficult to think in pictures brings to mind the only portion of PI that has always left me completely mystified. At PI §342, Wittgenstein discusses a deaf-mute's having had wordless thoughts before learning a word-language. He suggests that there is something uncomfortable or problematic about the deaf-mute claiming later that this-and-this is the correct translation of his earlier wordless thoughts into words. I've never understood why this should be any more problematic than any claim by anyone that this-and-this is the correct translation of their wordless thoughts. It seems to be an attack on the idea of wordless thought as such, and an un-Wittgensteinian one at that. If Wittgenstein came back to life, the first thing I'd like to ask him is what he meant by TLP §6.54, but the second one right after that would be his explanation of PI §342.
ReplyDelete(Further, at Zettel §638 Wittgenstein says that a mental representation in the form of a visual impression "is [not] the concept of a picture, although [...] there is a tie-up with a picture". I connect this with the above, and it arouses in me the same kind of bafflement.)
Wittgenstein's remark about being a disciple of Freud originally comes from Rhees's introductory note to the "Conversations on Freud" in Lectures and Conversations. Unfortunately Rhees does not elaborate any further there. The best thing on the remark that I've read is probably Bouveresse's Wittgenstein Reads Freud. The first chapter is titled "Wittgenstein: Disciple of Freud?" and is given over entirely to dealing with the question mark in the title.
Thanks, Tommi.
ReplyDeleteI remember Bouveresse being good, but not really removing the question mark in any definitive way.
Is this PI 342 in its entirety? "Case of Mr. Ballard: “Ballard writes: “It was during those delightful rides, some two or three years before my initiation into the rudiments of written language, that I began to ask myself the question: how came the world into being?”—Are you sure-one would like to ask—that this is the correct translation of your wordless thought into words?....” "
If so, perhaps the idea is that there are certain thoughts that seem hard to translate from pictures to words, just as the reverse might be the case too. That seems OK. But if Wittgenstein is being dogmatic about it then that seems un-Wittgensteinian, as you say. Suggesting that deaf-mutes couldn't think certain thoughts seems like suggesting that animals could not think certain thoughts (not to say that deaf-mutes are animals). And that seems like the kind of metaphysical assertion that prompts the question: How do you know?
I have always regarded PI § 342 as rather unproblematic and as simply saying: Look, being plagued by Sartrean/medival theology-concerns like "How did the world come into being?" requires a very refined use of language. It also requires what we might call an "age suitable for such concerns", i.e. ascriptions (and in Mr. Ballard's case, self-ascriptions) of such concerns to very young children borders on being senseless. That is, my interpretation have focussed on the specific content and refinement of what Mr. Ballard supposedly asked himself "languagelessly" rather than on the fact that he was deaf-mute. But I know don't; that might be totally off.
ReplyDeleteOswald Hanfling seems to give another, but credible, interpretation:
http://books.google.dk/books?id=DHchqRCsLocC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=Mr.+Ballard+PI%C2%A7342&source=bl&ots=cqGJsZpMLZ&sig=OpV7P53v4exd47UQREEYugVxfr8&hl=da#v=onepage&q=Mr.%20Ballard%20PI%C2%A7342&f=false
Also, it is worth reading the Ballard in full in William James:
http://books.google.dk/books?id=xSFlbEyDZuoC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=Mr.+Ballard+William+James&source=bl&ots=pNMjMW1G0O&sig=7oYghwOVGrShLPSrtEBpR61eZpk&hl=da#v=onepage&q=Mr.%20Ballard%20William%20James&f=false
I have always regarded PI § 342 as rather unproblematic and as simply saying: Look, being plagued by Sartrean/medival theology-concerns like "How did the world come into being?" requires a very refined use of language. It also requires what we might call an "age suitable for such concerns", i.e. ascriptions (and in Mr. Ballard's case, self-ascriptions) of such concerns to very young children borders on being senseless.
DeleteIf this is the correct interpretation, I disagree with Wittgenstein even more emphatically. And the reason is a purely empirical one: we have enough reports of normal, non-deaf-mute children asking such questions aloud at a comparably early age. See, for instance, Gareth Matthews's Philosophy and the Young Child, which is filled with verbatim quotations.
Also, it is worth reading the Ballard in full in William James:
Yes. If for no other reason, to see how lengthy and detailed the recollections of pre-linguistic thoughts are. From Wittgenstein's quotation, one could easily get the impression that "How did the world come into being?" was an isolated aside, but it obviously wasn't.
Thanks, Presskorn.
ReplyDeleteI realize that what I found before is not the whole of 342. Here it is:
William James, in order to shew that thought is possible without speech, quotes the recollection of a deaf-mute, Mr. Ballard, who wrote that in his early youth, even before he could speak, he had had thoughts about God and the world.—What can he have meant?—Ballard writes: "It was during those delightful rides, some two or three years before my initiation into the rudiments of written language, that I began to ask myself the question: how came the world into being?"—Are you sure—one would like to ask—that this is the correct translation of your wordless thought into words? And why does this question—which otherwise seems not to exist—raise its head here? Do I want to say that the writer's memory deceives him?—I don't even know if I should say that. These recollections are a queer memory phenomenon,—and I do not know what conclusions one can draw from them about the past of the man who recounts them.
I am struck by the idea that this question seems otherwise not to exist, but I have nothing more to say about that now. I like Hanfling's take on the passage, which emphasizes Wittgenstein's saying "I do not know." Where James seems to go wrong is in thinking that Ballard's case proves that wordless thought is possible. I'm not sure it really needs proof, but the Ballard example is odd enough that it does not constitute such proof. Or so it seems to me.
Tommy,
ReplyDeleteAbout §342. First let me quote it in full.
“William James, in order to shew that thought is possible without speech, quotes the recollection of a deaf-mute, Mr. Ballard, who wrote that in his early youth, even before he could speak, he had had thoughts about God and the world.--What can he have meant?--Ballard writes: "It was during those delightful rides, some two or three years before my initiation into the rudiments of written language, that I began to ask myself the question: how came the world into being?"--Are you sure--one would like to ask--that this is the correct translation of your wordless thought into words? And why does this question--which otherwise seems not to exist--raise its head here? Do I want to say that the writer's memory deceives him?--I don't even know if I should say that. These recollections are a queer memory phenomenon,--and I do not know what conclusions one can draw from them about the past of the man who recounts them.”
One thing that I don’t understand about §342 is what Ballard is actually claiming. Wittgenstein talks as if Ballard is speaking about a time “even before he could speak.” But then he quotes Ballard as talking of a time before his “initiation into the rudiments of WRITTEN language.” So I need to read the William James reference in Presskorn’s link.
But it seems that we need to go along with Wittgenstein here and talk of the wordless thoughts of pre-verbal creatures--of children before they even begin to speak. And now you say that what Wittgenstein says in §342 seems to you like an attack on the very idea of wordless thought. First, does it seem to you that Wittgenstein is attacking ALL notions of wordless thought?
It seems to me quite natural to say that we think without words in different sorts of cases. We do that, in one sort of cases, when tasting the batter to see if there is enough sugar in it, or when enjoying a sunset. A verbal description of the experience in these cases would strike us as poor. There is another sense of wordless thought according to which a football player can be said to be putting a lot of thought into a penalty kick, or according to which you can see the thoughtlessness of the actions of a novice mountain climber. Here the thinking comes out in an activity, and the activity is not verbal. There are probably more that would fall under the heading of wordless thinking. Does it seem to you that Wittgenstein is attacking these notions?
And another question: In both of the cases I just mentioned, the criterion for the thought is not verbal--or not necessarily verbal. Does it seem to you right? And if so, do you think we can say something similar about the case Wittgenstein describes in §342, or of the thoughts of a pre-linguistic creature about the origins of the world? Or is it an altogether different case? What would be the criterion for some pre-linguistic creature having such thoughts? And what would be the criterion for this creature, having acquired language a few years later, remembering his pre-linguistic thoughts correctly?
In a way, my questions here trace a line of thought similar to Presskorn’s. The difference is that he makes it seem as if such a pre-linguistic creature COULD not have such thoughts. I’m more baffled, because I’m not sure I understand what it WOULD be for such a creature to have such thoughts in the first place. (Perhaps this is Wittgenstein’s worry too.) So I don’t take myself to be in a position to say what Presskorn is saying, because saying this would imply I understand what it would be for such a creature to have such thoughts.
First, does it seem to you that Wittgenstein is attacking ALL notions of wordless thought? [...] Does it seem to you that Wittgenstein is attacking these notions?
DeleteI'm sorry, I put the matter too carelessly. What I meant was that he was attacking all notions of wordless thoughts being translatable into words. Or perhaps: of their being translatable into words satisfactorily – taking into account the cases where a description would "strike us as poor", as you put it.
What would be the criterion for some pre-linguistic creature having such thoughts?
First-hand reports by the creature, after having learned a language later. Note that Wittgenstein writes: "Are you sure--one would like to ask--that this is the correct translation of your wordless thought into words?" What if the answer is yes?
And what would be the criterion for this creature, having acquired language a few years later, remembering his pre-linguistic thoughts correctly?
The same as with remembering correctly any linguistic thoughts one has kept to oneself for years.
The difference is that he makes it seem as if such a pre-linguistic creature COULD not have such thoughts. I’m more baffled, because I’m not sure I understand what it WOULD be for such a creature to have such thoughts in the first place.
I in turn feel that I do understand it quite unproblematically, because I actually have (what strike me as relevantly) similar thoughts myself. By this I mean that I often have completely wordless thoughts – when I go for walks, for instance – which I could translate into words, but don't, for whatever reason. Often this is because I find it's not worth the effort. I could make the effort – but then again, Mr. Ballard too did make the effort and learned a written language for putting into words his formerly wordless thoughts. So the way I see it is that the difference between him and myself is a difference in degree only. I closely associate his reported experiences with certain autobiographical experiences, which understandably protects me quite well from being baffled by him.
(Let me also add that the wordless thoughts I referred to are of a subject matter analogous to Mr. Ballard's and not those of the batter taster, sunset watcher or football player.)
The question which Wittgenstein describes as "rais[ing] its head here" does not raise its head for me, and what he describes as "a queer memory phenomenon" is not queer for me at all. Above, Duncan characterises it as "odd". It isn't odd either for me. Hanfling in his book says "obviously something odd ... strange and intractable". To me such characterisations are themselves odd and intractable.
Tommy,
DeleteMuch of what I have to say just continues what Duncan has already said.
Duncan quoted §284 about the stone. And I take this remark to be relevant here, but perhaps it would help if we took an example that was closer: Suppose that someone said they have memories from the womb. I take it that this would strike us as strange. We would not know what they were talking about. And if they insisted that they have first person authority, it would still not going to help them here, because we don’t yet even know what they are claiming to have first person authority over. Similarly, if someone claims that as a two year-old they remember having great patriotic feelings, or feelings of nostalgia, there again would be something weird about it: it is not clear what foothold these words can have here. I’m not saying that these are exactly the same sort of cases as you describe. But if we are indeed talking of the logical possibility of a pre-linguistic baby having complicated metaphysical thoughts, then we are talking of the same type of strangeness. And it is grammatical strangeness.
Let me try to say something about this strangeness. To say of a pre-linguistic baby that she is having certain thoughts, I take it, is to also say that she is “minded” in a certain way: that her actions and expressions can take on certain meaningfulness. And this is the essential point that Duncan has also emphasized with regard to the pre-linguistic baby having complicated thoughts. Namely, that it is not clear what it would be for the actions or expressions of such a baby to be meaningful in this kind of way. This kind of meaningfulness does not have a foothold.
And memory cannot bridge that gap. The appeal to memory, I take it, is meant to detach the grammatical connection between mental occurrences and their expressions, saying that there is a thought without even the logical possibility of expression--for I take it that it is indeed meaningless to say of the baby that she is giving expression to such thoughts. So claiming to have memories of such complicated thoughts at such very young an age would be to say that (1) the thoughts existed then, and (2) that it would have been meaningless then to talk of anything that is observable in the baby’s behavior as giving expression to these thoughts.
(cont.)
Now, this makes it seem as if we have a notion of a bodiless mind--not of some soul entity floating around bodiless, but of a soul entity existing in a body without having any impact on what it would make sense to say of the body. And this idea is strange because this just IS, I take it, what it is to have a mind, a soul, in the first place: to say that something has a mind is to say that it makes sense to talk of it--of the meaning of its bodily behavior--in a certain way.
DeleteSaying of you today that you have wordless thoughts does not strike me as strange at all. For one thing, I don’t see much of a difference between thinking in pictures and thinking in words. (If Wittgenstein’s intuition in the TLP is good, then thinking in word just is a kind of thinking in pictures). But second, it would make perfectly good sense to say of you that certain actions or expressions of yours give (or fail to give) expression to those thoughts. And this is just to say that you are “minded” in a way that the baby is not.
So perhaps there is a matter of degree here between adult wordless thoughts and pre-linguistic baby wordless thoughts. But this doesn’t mean it necessarily is not a matter of grammar. Wittgenstein gives an example in the Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, (I’m certain it’s there, but I am probably misremembering the details), where he is gradually turning a phone-machine into a phone-picture: first by imagining that the wires are disconnected, and then by imagining the mechanism is missing some parts, and then missing completely, and then by imagining that instead of plastic it is all paper, and so on. And he says that the fact that some difference is a matter of degree doesn’t mean it is not a matter of grammar: It makes sense to say of the disconnected phone that it is “not working,” for instance, but it would be strange to say that of the picture—even though the difference between them is of degree.
The phone-example Reshef is thinkning of is in Lecture I of Lectures on Foundations of Mathematics (more specifically the example is found on p. 17-18 in the standard Cora Diamond-edition, 1976).
DeleteReshef misremembers the details of the example, but it's certainly relevant for the matter at hand. Significantly, Wittgenstein starts the example by saying:
" I wish to say that there is no sharp line at all between the cases where you would say "I don't at all what you are talking about", and cases where you would say "Oh, really?" "
Ballard's memories seems to fit within this spectrum. Our discussion, I suppose, shows that we are not quite sure whether to respond to Ballard with "Oh, really?" or "I don't at all what you are talking about".
Thanks, Presskorn! I wondered about that.
DeleteI agree with Reshef. His statement of the matter is just much clearer than mine. Reshef aptly captures the interpretation that I was aiming for by talk of us not knowing what it WOULD be like for a pre-linguistic creature to think like Sartre.
ReplyDeleteOne could still justify the use of COULD, if one argued something along these lines: It is NECESSARY that we cannot know what it WOULD be like for X to have Y => There is no such thing such that it would COUNT AS “X having Y” => X COULD not “have Y”.
But as I said, I agree with Reshef and his way of putting it.
I wanted to quote James on Ballard, but the passage is longer than these comment boxes allow so I wrote my comment as a new blog post. Please see above for further thoughts on this topic.
ReplyDeleteWe have reached the outlines of a shared understanding! But I still feel that I have to correct what strike me as misunderstandings of the autobiographical example I provided.
ReplyDeleteSaying of you today that you have wordless thoughts does not strike me as strange at all. For one thing, I don’t see much of a difference between thinking in pictures and thinking in words.Saying of you today that you have wordless thoughts does not strike me as strange at all. For one thing, I don’t see much of a difference between thinking in pictures and thinking in words.
But the thoughts I described myself as having are pictureless just as completely as they are wordless. If you are trying to assimilate to your view the thoughts I described myself as having, bringing in the phenomenon of thinking in pictures is completely misleading and takes us in precisely the wrong direction. When I identify personally with Mr. Ballard in the way I described – when I feel that what I'm experiencing myself right now must be relevantly similar to what he experienced on his childhood rides – the experience is characterised by picturelessness as much as wordlessness.
But second, it would make perfectly good sense to say of you that certain actions or expressions of yours give (or fail to give) expression to those thoughts.
I don't think so. It's quite rare that thoughts about, say, cosmology have any behaviourally significant consequences. Indeed, when I give up on the wordless and pictureless thoughts I sometimes get, it's often because they would not have any even if I did take the trouble of articulating them through language. My actions and expressions pass the thoughts by, but this is not at all the same as "failing to give expression to them". For one, because I do not "feel the lack of ... a description" at all (see PI §610).
Yes, "an inner process stands in need of outward criteria". But the outward criteria in Ballard's case are his later reports after having learned a language.
Ballard's memories seems to fit within this spectrum. Our discussion, I suppose, shows that we are not quite sure whether to respond to Ballard with "Oh, really?" or "I don't at all what you are talking about".
Yes, it seems so; the phone examples is very illuminating. But I feel like throwing in another quotation from Wittgenstein's lectures, this time from the lectures on religious belief (pp. 70–71):
"Suppose someone, before going to China, when he might never see me again, said to me, 'We might see another after death' – would I necessarily say that I don't understand him? I might say [want to say] simply, 'Yes, I understand him entirely'.
Lewy: 'In this case, you might only mean that he expressed a certain attitude.'
I would say 'No, it isn't like the same thing as saying "I'm very fond of you"' – and it may not be the same as saying anything else. It says what it says. Why should you be able to substitute anything else?"
Compare: "Suppose someone reported having had abstract thoughts about cosmology as a small child, before learning a language – would I necessarily say that I don't understand him? I might say [do in fact say] simply, 'Yes, I understand him entirely'. It says what it says. Why should you be able to substitute anything else?"
I should let Reshef respond for himself, but I agree with your last point. You might indeed say simply, "Yes, I understand him entirely." There is no question of this not being possible or (logically or grammatically) permissible as a response. But equally, of course, such a response can be questioned by others. That's why if someone says "We might see one another after death" we don't have to accept this in a fideistic kind of way. It is perfectly intelligible to reject all such talk as nonsense, and it's possible to have a conversation about the pros and cons of doing so. I don't think it's possible to prove that it's necessarily a mistake to reject such talk, or to engage in it, but there's also no reason to suppose that the pros and the cons must have exactly the same weight. I don't think this contradicts anything you have said.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I am having difficulties with the idea of a medium-less thought. Perhaps the problem is a cousin of the problem with the idea of soulless body. Maybe I'll return to this later.
ReplyDeleteSince you mentioned Wittgenstein's saying that inner processes stand in need for outward criteria, I'll use it and say that I am not sure what to make of the idea of criteria which are not connected to some medium or another. That is, if it makes sense to talk of criteria, then it should also make sense to talk of whether they are met or not. And if this makes sense, then it should make sense to ask in what medium we can discern whether they are met. But if you insist that in the case of your wordless and picture-less and in general medium-less thoughts it does not make sense to ask this question, then I am baffled. I honestly don't have a sense that I know what you are talking about. Which is really interesting!
And in the Ballard case, the suggestion that the medium for the expression of the thought only exists in the future of the baby also baffles me. As I said, I don't know how to ascribe complicated thoughts to a baby (how anything I could do would even amount to such an ascription). And I don't know that because I don't see what would make it meaningful to say of the baby that it gives expression to such thoughts, or that it fails to. The baby doesn't exist in this grammatical space, as it were.
Perhaps the misunderstanding has to do with the idea of 'behaviourally significant consequences.' First, I should clarify that I don't take thought to stand in need of actual behaviourally significant consequences. I only take it to be meaningful to talk of "thoughts" when it is also meaningful to talk of them having "behaviourally significant consequences." And also, I don't think I want to limit what I would regard as "behaviourally significant consequences." Saying something is behaviourally significant, and likewise drawing something. I'm not sure if this is relevant. I'm saying this just in case.
Perhaps what I have to say next will be more relevant.
(cont.)
You mention Wittgenstein saying "It says what it says" in connection with someone saying "We might see one another after death."
ReplyDeleteBut this is not that simple, as Duncan says. This response has to be elaborated on, because the difficulty is exactly with what it says. This is not clear, and Wittgenstein's response seems to take the meaning of those words to be clear and unproblematic.
(These lectures are a mess anyway, and they seem to require a lot of reconstruction. Cora Diamond did some very interesting reconstruction, and if I remember, she also discusses the part of the text you mentioned. I don't think she published the paper though. If you want it, let me know.)
Anyway, compare: Suppose someone reported having drawn a round square. – Might we say simply, 'Yes, we understand him entirely. It says what it says'?
I take it that words in general don't make sense of themselves. And to me your examples come very close to the round square example. I don't blame you. The problem is with me: I just don't see how to function with this language about pre-linguistic thoughts about cosmology.
Not that I think that the two cases (the pre-linguistic thoughts and the round square) necessarily belong in the same basket. I'm only saying that in both I am similarly baffled.
And this connects with the idea of a bodiless soul, Plato talks as if this is not a problematic idea sometimes. But I don't think he was unaware that there is a problem, and that his talk might not make sense to people just because they understand what body is and what soul is.
Presumably, Plato had a point to make. He utilized this form of words for some purpose. And he also knew that getting his intention would require more than just simple application of the criteria for using the words 'soul' and 'body.'
It is possible that in the meeting-after-death example, Wittgenstein was doing something similar. Namely, that there was for him a point in using this language: a point that would not be understood simply by applying the ordinary criteria for using the words "meeting" and "after" and "death."
What that point could be? - I take it that that is a different question in each case. And for me these questions are not answered either in the pre-linguistic cosmological thoughts case, or in your medium-less thoughts case.
I might be suffering here from meaning-blindness.
Does this link work? I think the paper by Cora Diamond has been published, and a relevant chunk can be read online.
ReplyDelete