Sunday, May 30, 2010

Phrasing

Cassirer's genetic derivation of Language misses an important step. On his account, the decisive step from animal to human expression is from interjective cry to name. But the Formaterial analysis of Experience reveals an intermediate stage. According to that analysis, all Individual activity is a combination of Material and Formal processes, e. g. an emissive impulsion, and a shaping of that emission. Thus, the act of speaking is constituted by an emission of sound, and a shaping of that sound. Likewise, the act of handwriting is constituted by an emission of ink, and a shaping of that ink, whereas in typewriting, printing, and word processing, the combining is accomplished mechanically. Even in most cases of speaking, the combining is so habitual that the entailed Material-Formal distinction is obscured. But, one activity in which their interactivity is more palpable is in scat singing, in which a performer carries out the actual shaping of sound, a process that can be called 'Phrasing'. Usually, the Phrases generated in scat singing are characterized as 'nonsensical', but such a judgement is merely conventional, i. e. it is based only on a Phrase having no generally-accepted import. However, that any 'nonsensical' Phrase, e. g. 'copacetic' can, via repetition and fixing, become 'meaningful', demonstrates not only how Phrasing is an intermediate stage between amorphous interjecting and naming, but that it is a fundamental stratum of any utterance.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Rorty's Mirror and Kant

Rorty uses the image 'mirror of nature' to characterize Philosophical theories that aim to represent, as accurately as possible, the surrounding world, and he classifies Kant's theory of Knowledge as one of them. But, such a classification is radically erroneous. It is not that the 'mirror' analogy is inappropriate, but that Rorty's application of it to Kant's theory is pre-'Copernican'. Rather than serving as a mirror of Nature, human Knowledge of Nature, according to Kant, is a mirror of Humanity, and the main point of this theory is to delineate the limits of that Knowledge. In other words, Kant's 'Copernican Revolution' demonstrates how human Knowledge anthropomorphizes Nature, a process which Darwin could classify as an adaptation of Nature by the species. Thus, Cassirer seems to understand better than the more explicitly Pragmatistic Rorty, the Kantian thesis that Knowledge, like all Human tools, reflects, first and foremost, its user.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Confusion in Reflection

Reflection is an important trans-disciplinary topic that has often entailed some serious confusions. One variety of Reflection, which for current analytical purposes can be called 'Physical Reflection', or 'PR', describes a process that involves the following components--a source, e. g. a face; a reflecting surface, e. g. a mirror; an image, e. g. a face in the mirror; and an observer, e. g. someone looking at the mirror. In another variety, 'Experiential Reflection' ('ER'), a person is a reflecting surface, some environmental feature is a source, and some expression of the person is a reflected image, e. g. when the worry in someone's face reflects the stress that they are under, or when someone's writings reflect the influence of another. In contrast with both PR and ER, a third variety, 'Introspective Reflection', ('IR'), lacks a reflecting surface--it is constituted merely by one's bending back towards oneself. One locus of confusion is the object of IR, a confusion which is at least analogous to a common one in PR. Often, in PR, the source, the image, and the observer are taken to be simultaneous, so that the observer believes that the object of observation in the mirror is that act of observation itself. But, as rapid as light is, there is, nevertheless, an instantaneous time differential between source and image, and between image and observer. Hence, what an observer perceives in the mirror is actually their face at a previous moment. Similarly, there are Philosophers, e. g. Sartre, who presume the object of an act of IR to be an image of that act itself. But, the PR example shows that the object of an act of introspection is always some previous act, even a previous act of introspection. Misunderstanding Reflection in this way might be called 'reverse Narcissism'--whereas Narcissus takes an image to be a real object, Sartre et al. take a real object to be an image.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Reflection and Meaning

As has been previously discussed, 'reflection' literally means 'bending back'. Accordingly, insofar as any object exhibits some modification, it reflects the cause of that modification. Hence, in any communication, an utterance reflects its utterer, the process of its being uttered, and the purpose of the utterance. For, all contribute to the modification of a medium, e. g. to the transition of silence to sound, or, to the filling of a blank page with characters. In other words, an utterance signifies its utterer, its uttering, and its purpose, so the latter are all parts of its meaning. As has been also previously discussed, Dewey's notion 'Expression' is more accurately 'Reflection', so insofar as any Wittgensteinian 'Use' of Language presupposes its Expressiveness, it presupposes a Reflection of a user, a using, and a purpose. Furthermore, in his Semiotic, an effect is the type of Sign of its cause that Peirce classifies as 'Index'. So, though, his primary interest in Language is how it can function as a 'Symbol', i. e. as a generalized Sign, all Language is Indexical. Now, according to the Reflection theory of Meaning, a Meaning of an utterance is a reflection of what the utterer intends via it, which can entail any or all of Sense, Reference, Expression, or Use, the bases of traditional theories of Meaning. Hence it accommodates these other theories, while uniquely, apparently, explaining neologic or stipulated Meaning.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Reflection and Expression

To 'reflect' means, literally, to 'bend back'. Hence, an echo is a kind of 'reflection', because it involves the bending back of sound waves. Likewise, a turning toward oneself is a bending back, and, hence, an act of reflection. However, the perceptual dimension of the latter is not necessarily reflective, for its object of perception might be an original phenomenon, e. g. when one observes oneself producing a sound that is not itself an echo. Similarly, when one looks in the mirror, the reflective process involved is, precisely, the bending of the image of the face off the surface of the mirror, not the observation of this reflected image. Furthermore, the example of a perception of the image of an overhanging nearby tree in a body of water demonstrates that reflection need entail self-awareness. So, more generally, any exhibition of the modification of some entity is a reflection of the cause of that modification. Hence, any modification of a medium for communicative purposes is a reflection of the communicator and of those purposes. Thus, for example, the deliberate broadening of and upturning of the ends of one's mouth, thereby baring one's teeth, i. e. smiling, is a reflection of one's happiness. Therefore, the deliberate process that Dewey calls 'expression' is, more accurately, 'reflection', whereas the process that he characterizes as an involuntary discharge is, contrary to his classification, 'expression', i. e. 'pushing outward'.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Cassirer and Self-Consciousness

In Cassirer's account, the earliest manifestation of self-consciousness is the possessive 'my'--even 'I go' is initially expressed as 'My going'. Eventually, the dynamic 'I' splits off, and, ultimately develops into 'I think'. But, the latter, which is plainly derived from Kant's theory, is an impersonal function. Thus, like Kant, Cassirer does not explain how the personal 'my' is derived from an 'I' that is as impersonal as a thinker as it is as an object of possession at the earlier phase. Unlike Kant, Cassirer goes no further. For, Kant's subsequent Pure Principle of Practical Reason, aka 'the Categorical Imperative', creates a new 'I', i. e. the subject of 'I will', which, furthermore, is the bearer of personhood. Not merely does Cassirer relatively neglect this dimension of the Kantian System, but in the absence of a derivation of a 'me' consciousness, he would seem to have difficulty explaining how an 'I' can understand that it is being addressed in 'act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be a universal law'.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Cassirer and Practical Reason

The primary accomplishment of Cassirer's Philosophy is the definition of Humanity as 'animal symbolicum', for, what, to him, distinguishes Humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom is its creation and use of symbols--language, myth, religious rites, art. The importance of the Kantian System to Cassirer is that it explains the genesis of symbols--they are generated by the 'productive imagination', with its archetypal 'Schematism'. The Philosophical originality of the Schematism, for Cassirer, is that it provides a basis for a Constructionist theory of Knowledge, the highest achievement of which is Science, which, facilitated by the use of variables, can present universally-valid intellectual formulas. One way that Cassirer breaks from Kant is expressed in his expansion of 'animal rationale' to 'animal symbolicum', because he believes that Reason is only one Symbolic Form, and hence, insufficient as a characterization of the specific Human difference amongst animals. However, some of his followers believe that Cassirer has gone further, by transcending the constraints of the Critique of Theoretical Reason--i. e. since Reason plays a constructive role in the presentation of the objects of Knowledge, Theoretical Reason is indeed constitutive, not merely regulative, of those objects. But, if Cassirer agrees with that assessment, he misses the main point of that Critique, which is to define the limits of Knowledge to its own products. In Cassirerian terms, the Critique means that Knowledge can never extend beyond what can be symbolized, i. e. it is not adequate to the nature that it does not create. Furthermore, that symbols are determinative within their own realm does mean that they can be constitutive in one sphere of nature, namely Human behavior, insofar as Humans can voluntarily use symbols to construct their conduct. In other words, Cassirer's analyses do not override the demonstration of the Kantian System that Pure Practical Reason, not Theoretical Reason, is the highest achievement of animal symbolicum, thereby accomplishing a transition to Homo Faber.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Cassirer and Prescriptive Language

Cassirer's account of the evolution of Language has a significant gap, one that is indicative of a shortcoming in his neo-Kantianism. One important transition in that account is from presentational to representational language, epitomized by the transition from a name as incarnating a god to a name as a label. Another way to characterize that contrast is between language as animate versus language as inanimate, in which the decisive difference is that at the earlier phase, e. g. Myth, words are taken as having causal efficacy, e. g. as when an utterance is expected to bring rain. But, though his explanation of the transition from presentation to representation does not account for a transition from efficacy to inefficacy, causal efficacy disappears from Cassirer's genealogy as a feature of Language. The real flaw in the account is not that it fails to explain the latter transition, but that it, like most Philosophies of Language, fails to recognize efficacy as a still extant feature of Language. For, that extant prescriptive language is causally efficacious, though mediated, is obscured by its general subsumption under descriptive categories. In contrast, the previous discussions here of Preception attempt to free prescription from description by according it a distinct set of categories--Precept vs. Proposition, Signal vs. Sign, Conception vs. Concept. Furthermore, that Cassirer offers no explanation of the reduction of presciptive to descriptive language is a reflection of his interpretation of Kant--its relative neglect of the Critique of Practical Reason. He thereby misses the centrality to Kant's System of the Fundamental Principle of Pure Practical Reason, especially that in it, both Reason is linguistic, and prescriptive Reason is accorded priority over descriptive Reason. Hence, Cassirer's theory of Language reflects a neglect of one of the pivotal innovations of Kantianism.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Cassirer and Consciousness

While the main focus on Cassirer's Philosophy is usually, and justifiably, on its main theme, Symbolic Forms, it also entails an original and profound theory of Consciousness. Supported by studies of childhood development, his thesis is that at its most fundamental, awareness is a 'Thou' consciousness of physiognomic expression, e. g. of parental friendliness or anger. Furthermore, it is at an early phase of subsequent development, that a nascent I-Thou-He experiential contrast is refined to One-Two-Three. It is only later that a transition to impersonal it-consciousness, and, thence, to theory and science, begins to emerge. Hence, what are traditionally posited as the foundations of Consciousness, e. g. the Sense-Datum, of Empiricism, or the Mathematical Forms, of Rationalism, are, according to Cassirer, far removed from the origin of Consciousness. Also, one notable specific application of his theory is to the problem of 'Knowledge of the Other'. Traditional accounts, despite their differences, present analyses that treat the problem as a derivation of an I from an experiential It; even non-cognitive solutions, e. g. Sensualist Sympathy, or Levinas' Ethics, formulate the problem as one of supplying a link between two discrete entities. For Cassirer, theoretical interpersonal knowledge is a refinement of a connection that already exists. Likewise, the impersonal sciences are only special branches of human culture, in his System.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Meaning, Use, and Expression

In his Use theory of Meaning, Wittgenstein likens a word to a tool--the meaning of either is a function of its specific use in a context. Just as what as screwdriver is is determined by its use in the insertion or extraction of a screw, the word 'check' means one thing when uttered in a restaurant, another, during a chess match. But, there is more to the physical presence of a screwdriver than an edge which fits the notch on the head of a screw--it also has a handle. So, as the word 'handle' suggests, a screwdriver also physically signifies what not merely transcends any particular use, but what is presupposed by any use, namely, a hand that can wield it. Likewise, even a word outside of any context still bears some physical phonetic or graphic characteristic that befits its utterability, which, hence, signifies an utterer, even an indefinite one. So, because such meaningfulness not merely transcends any context, but is presupposed by any use of a word, i. e. by its utterability, it is beyond the scope of Wittgenstein's Use theory of Meaning. In contrast, Cassirer's Expression theory of Meaning can be extended to accommodate it. In the primitive structure of linguistic Expression, which Cassirer applies primarily to the study of the names of gods in Mythical experience, the god is taken as present in the name, so the signified is compresent with the sign. Likewise, the signifying of an utterer, or of a hand, is compresent in a word, or screwdriver, i. e. any word is not merely a sequence of sounds or scribbles, but is a signifier of an utterer, even an indefinite one. Therefore, Wittgenstein's Use theory of Meaning presupposes an Expression theory of Meaning.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Semiotic, Semiology, and Semiogony

A Semiotic theory such as Peirce's is more accurately classified as 'Semiology'. What it does present is an account of the structure of the sign-signified-interpretant relation. However, it offers no explicit 'Semiogony', i. e. an explanation as to how a bare phenomenon becomes transformed into a sign, to begin with. His preference for Inductive processes suggests that he implicitly subscribes to an Associationist Semiogony, in which one phenomenon is taken to represent another on the basis of their prior constant conjunction. Now, the similarity of such Associationism to Hume's theory of Causality might suggest that the Semiogony of a neo-Kantian would be based on some a priori Category. However, Cassirer's Semiogony is Hegelian--he argues that phenomena are fundamentally expressive, with both sign and signified being entailed in a unitary phenomenon, e. g. a smile. Furthermore, their compresence is dialectical, leading first to their separation, and, subsequently, to their reconciliation. Hence, according to this theory, the disassociation of sign and signified precedes what amounts to a re-associtation, so what Associationism offers is a merely derivative, partial Semiogony. But Cassirer's Semiogony also has a Semiological consequence--if a phenomenon is fundamentally expressive, it presents a counter-example to Peirce's thesis that sign and signified are distinct phenomena.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Cassirer, Dewey, and Expression

For Cassirer, part of the importance of the phenomenon of fundamental Expression is that in it, sign and signified are united. For example, the happiness expressed in a smile is inseparable from its physiognomic display. However, Dewey suggests that there is a distinction between the involuntary discharge and the deliberate, even sincere, display, of an emotion, e. g. between a smile that is the product of overflowing joy and the explicit use of the medium of the face to communicate that joy--only the latter is expressive, according to Dewey. To a certain extent, Dewey's objection is merely terminological, i. e. that the term 'expression' is to be applied only to a deliberate process, whereas Cassirer applies it more broadly. Still, Cassirer makes the further point that the communicative efficacy of a deliberate smile presupposes the acceptance of any smile as being indicative of a happy condition, regardless of whether or not it is a contrivance. So, as he contends, deliberate expression is only a refinement of primitive Expression.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Cassirer, Expression, and Schopenhauer

Cassirer's Kantianism is acknowledged and widely-recognized--the main feature of his Philosophy, 'Symbolic Forms', is explicitly derived from Kant's 'Schematism', and from the Critique of Judgement, which Cassirer regards as an elaboration of the Schematism. Less appreciated is how another of Cassirer's important notions, 'Expression', illuminates Schopenhauerian neo-Kantianism. For Cassirer, Expression is the essence of Experience, as demonstrated by Mythical consciousness. The latter, according to him, precedes any differentiation into specific gods, which implies that even Nietzsche's Dionysus-Apollo dichotomy represents a derivative stage of Myth. But, that dichotomy is based on Schopenhauer's Will vs. Representation interpretation of Kant's In-Itself vs. Appearance contrast, one underpinned by unitary Schematism. Hence, from the perspective of Cassirer's theory of Experience as Expression, Schopenhauer's dualism is a derivative, not a fundamental, theory of Experience, which, furthermore, undoes the accomplishment of the Critique of Judgement. Now, Schopenhauer momentarily seems to recover that underlying unity--for him, Music is neither Will nor Representation, but an 'objectification' of the latter, a dynamic, yet structured, process. However, he quickly relapses into dualism, by placing emphasis on a contemplative mode of experiencing Music, a dualism which Nietzsche naively, at least at the outset, perpetuates.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Wittgenstein and Analytic Philosophy

One repeated image in the Investigations, one that has inspired Rorty to classify Wittgenstein as repudiating the concept of Philosophy as a 'mirror of nature', is the notion of Philosophy as Therapy--the treatment of intellectual confusion caused by bewitchment by language, terminating in the attainment of Clarity. But the image itself terminates in the attainment of Clarity. For, while physicians can offer objective criteria for Health, e. g. blood-pressure rate and cholesterol level, Wittgenstein seems to regard his use of intellectual Clarity as a criterion of Health to be self-justifying. Furthermore, physicians do not merely cure disease, they also prescribe regimens for the promotion of Health. In contrast, activities such as prescribing conduct, constructing buildings, and inventing games seem to lack Philosophical significance for Wittgenstein, for whom the Philosophical language-game seems to consist exclusively in descriptive activities. Hence, Rorty's inclusion of Wittgenstein with other anti-Representationalists is puzzling. While their Philosophies prescribe, construct, or invent, Wittgenstein's 'Therapy' amounts to nothing more than mirror-cleaning.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Wittgenstein's Bewitchment

Wittgenstein's influential assertion, "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language", is self-exemplifying, perhaps unwittingly. One way that a statement can bewitch is by amplifying a predicative 'is' to an equalizing one. Another is to use an objective propositional formulation to pass off an opinion as a fact. In other words, an application to this statement itself, of the kind of counter-bewitchment analysis that Wittgenstein prescribes in the Investigations, reduces it to "My current Philosophical aim is to battle against . . . etc.", just as it reduces Russell's "Logic is the essence of Philosophy" to "My Logic is the essence of my Philosophy". Wittgenstein shows here how intelligence can be bewitched by non-linguistic means as well, e. g. by inferring from one's proficiency with one tool that it is the only tool in the toolbox.

Contextualism

If 'Atomism' is the thesis that a manifold is an aggregate of simple elements, 'Wholism' holds that that the constituents of that manifold are the parts of some prior unity. A middle ground between Atomism and Wholism could be called 'Contextualism', which believes that that manifold is a heterogeneous collection of opaque manifolds. For example, Dewey's concept of 'Experience' is a Context, i. e. an 'Experience', for him, is a discrete sequence of interactions between a human and their environment, unified by a mood. Likewise, a Wittgensteinian 'language-game' can be classified as a Context. Thus, Atomism can be challenged not only by Wholism, but by Contextualism, as well. However, as is the case with Wholism, a Contextualist challenge to Atomistic Logicism is not necessarily a repudiation of Logicism. For example, a Proposition can be construed as a Context, i. e. as an opaque unity of a manifold of words. Thus, Frege's contention that words have no meaning outside of the propositions in which they are used, is a Contextualist critique of Atomism that is hardly anti-Logicistic. In fact, it exposes a confusion in Russell's Logicism--whether it is individual subjects or propositions that are the simple elements in Russell's System. If the latter, then Russell, too, is a Contextualist, not an Atomist.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Wittgenstein and Atomism

The Logicism of the Tractatus and of Russell is, furthermore, Atomistic--it holds not merely that Logic is the objectively necessary, universally valid, essence of Language, but that it is a system based on irreducible, self-evidently true, propositions. In contrast, Wholistic Logicism, e. g. Leibniz's, holds that the whole of the system precedes its parts. Hence, the Tractatus and Russell can be challenged from two main directions--Pragmaticism disputes the objective necessity of Logic, while, e. g. Whitehead rejects its Atomism, while remaining a Logicist himself. Both types of repudiation are to be found in the Investigations. On the one hand, Wittgenstein's 'language-game' device is a Pragmatist rejection of the universal validity of Logic. But on the other, he presents numerous examples of what might be called a 'sub-atomic' analysis of the purported Atoms of that theory, which results in the exposure of those propositions, and of propositions in general, as being not as simple as the theory presumes them to be. So, one seeming incoherence of the Investigations is the relation between Wittgenstein's two lines of attack, i. e. the Sub-Atomic analysis can undermine Atomistic Logicism, but in the name of Wholistic Logicism, leaving it at odds with his Pragmatism.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Wittgenstein, Logicism, and Ideology

Absent from Wittgenstein's discussion of the indefinability of 'game' is any consideration of examples of activities which are plainly not called 'games', which should not have been difficult to find in the Europe of the early 1940s. Similarly, how the pleas of a beggar qualify as a 'language-game' is unclear. More generally unclear is the extent of Wittgenstein's repudiation of Logicism, i. e. whether or not he regards Logicism as implicitly prejudicial. On the one hand, Russell believes that, as universally valid, Logic and Mathematics transcend all social divisions. On the other, Dewey argues that such purported transcendence is itself a product of, and, hence, an implicit defense of, socio-economic class polarity. Now, while embedding Language in non-linguistic activity, Wittgenstein's representations of the latter remain as cloistered as Russell's. So, it is unclear whether Wittgenstein's 'fly' has indeed escaped, only to return into the bottle, in order to lead other flies out, or, has not escaped, knows that there is an escape route, but is reluctant to leave familiar surroundings behind.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Rules of the Games

A feature of most, if not all, 'games' is that they can be 'won', though Wittgenstein, in his analogizing of Language and Game, never seems to explain what 'winning' a 'language-game' might consist in. What, instead, seems most significant to him about games is that they are rule-governed, and, in particular, that their rules are invented, and are consensually or conventionally adhered to. Such a notion of 'rule' provides him with a substantive counter to the constraint that is at the heart of the Logistic theory of Language--objectively necessary law, e. g. the essence of the axioms and universal formulas of Mathematics and Logic, the pre-eminent forms of Language, according to that theory. Still, the inessential features of the Game metaphor run the risk of transfixing Wittgenstein's trapped 'fly' with confusion. In contrast, the Pragmatist, i. e. from Peirce and Dewey, alternative to Logicism--that the fundamental propositions of Mathematics and Logic are instrumental, experimental, hypotheses, accomplishes the liberation that Wittgenstein purports to be aiming for, but without the clutter. Furthermore, minus its attention to games, the Investigation still formidably itself advances an Instrumental theory of Language, while what it does contain about games is insufficient for an independent theory of Games. It lacks, e. g., as has been proposed here, a thesis of Humanity as Homo Ludens, a definition of 'Play', a derivation from the latter of a definition of 'Game', and, only then, a classification of 'Language' as a species of Game, with examples such as Poetry, crossword puzzles, etc. that would make a more compelling case for his 'language-game' model.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Wittgenstein, Games, and Tools

While attempting to defend his contention that 'game' is indefinable, Wittgenstein, at one point, entertains the objection that there must be some common characteristic possessed by all games. His response is an insistent "Don't think, look", thereby directing attention to what he believes is evidence that all activities called 'games' do not share something specific in common, but are merely linked by a system of loose resemblances. Now, as has been suggested here, a game is an activity performed for its own sake, but, to suspend that hypothesis, and to follow his instruction to instead "look", still leads to the conclusion that he fails to justify his use of Game as a metaphor for Language. For, looking at the main examples of 'language-games' presented in the Investigation, e. g. the interaction between a builder and an assistant, discovers nothing game-like about those activities. Instead, another metaphor, which he only briefly entertains, namely, words as tools, seems more suited to the examples that he presents. So, perhaps there is a case to be made for construing Language as a Game, but the Investigations is more coherent as a demonstration of an Instrumental theory of Language, and, as such, is no less an effective counter to the Logistic theory advanced by the Tractatus, Russell, etc.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Plato's Cave and Empiricism

In the passage from the Republic commonly referred to as 'Plato's Cave', a contrast is drawn between shadows and real objects, which Plato procedes to assert is the relation between sensory and intellectual objects. Since Empiricism can be defined as entailing the thesis that intellectual objects are no more than abstractions from sensory objects, Plato is explicitly espousing anti-Empiricist position in this passage. However, the passage is open to a complete inversion by an Empiricist. For, the latter can argue that from the perspective of the 'real' objects outside the cave, metaphor and thought are only abstractions. Thus, Plato's transition from those objects to less palpable entities can easily be interpreted by an Empiricist as a return to the shadows in the cave.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Language and Games

Close to the outset of the Investigations, Wittgenstein explicitly defines "language-games" as "language, and the actions into which it is woven". In contrast, he not only never defines "game", but seems to argue that the indefiniteness of the concept is a virtue. Now, here, it has been previously suggested that one characteristic of a game is that it is an 'activity performed for its own sake', and a detailed explanation of 'for its own sake' has been offered. Still, if Wittgenstein were to remain dissatisfied with such a delimitation, if not outright definition, of 'game', he could not argue that crossword puzzles, acrostics, etc. are in fact called 'word-games'. Furthermore, Poetry, as an activity performed for its own sake, qualifies here, on the basis of that characteristic, as a 'language-game'. Such examples are in clear contrast with the uses of Language that Wittgenstein classifies as 'games', because the latter are explicitly non-linguistic activities in which Language serves an ulterior purpose. Even the use of Language in activities which are commonly classified as 'games', e. g. the call 'strike one' in baseball, is purposeful, and, hence, is not the performance of Language for its own sake. Thus, as provocative and as fruitful as Wittgenstein's notion of 'language-games' has proven to be, he falls short of justifying its classification of Language as a 'game'.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Fly, the Bottle, and the Looking-Glass

Wittgenstein asserts, in the Investigations, that his aim is to 'show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle'. This image implies that the fly is actually in the bottle, and that there is an actual means of escape. It leaves unexplained whether or not the escape route is blocked by a stopper, so it is unclear whether or not what Wittgenstein is trying to show the fly is a route, or a method of removing the stopper, or both. Furthermore, the image entails the possibility of an illusory escape--showing the fly how to make a new bottle while it remains trapped within the original. In any case, while the 'bottle' seems to represent for Wittgenstein Language, in general, his particular focus is on Mathematics and Logic. Thus, while the immediate target of his demonstrations is the kind of theory that he himself, in the Tractatus, and others, such as Russell, advance, his prototypical opponent is Pythagoras. For, insofar as the latter maintains that all reality has a fundamental Mathematical structure, that structure is a 'bottle' in which humans are trapped. But, if the counter-thesis to Pythagoreanism is, as Wittgenstein seems to propose, that Mathematics is merely one context of human activity, then it implies that humans are never in the 'bottle' to begin with, so that any notion of being trapped in one is itself illusory. Hence, a more accurate image of counter-Pythagoreanism is that Mathematical 'reality' is a 'looking-glass', with its potential concomitant illusion that everything, including oneself, exists only 'in' the looking-glass. Thus, the true pioneer of contemporary Philosophy of Language is, as perhaps Deleuze alone has realized, not Peirce, Frege, Russell, or even Heidegger or Wittgenstein, but Charles Dodgson.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Language-Game of Language-Games

Wittgenstein's later project is generally recognized to be a radical departure from and repudiation of his earlier work. In the latter, he presents Language as an isomorphic representation of the world, whereas, in the latter, Language is a context-bound 'game', meaningful only relative to a given context. On the basis of the later theory, therefore, both projects are examples of a 'Language-Game', and perhaps the best characterization of the later project is Witttgenstein's own image: 'showing the fly the way out of the bottle'. As new as the notion 'Language-Game' might be, 'showing the fly the way out of the bottle' is a game that is arguably as old as Philosophy itself, i. e. Socrates and Plato can be interpreted as using Language to transcend the strictures of Language. Furthermore, the cryptic closing comment of the Tractatus, "whereof we cannot speak, we must remain silent" suggests a detachment from Language that could indicate that even there, the fly is aware of an outside of the bottle. If so, then, Wittgenstein's later project is an explicit continuation of the implicit Language-Game that he plays in his earlier work. Hence, the systematic improvement over the span of his career is that his project becomes self-exemplifying, i. e. his mature concept of Language as a Game is itself a Language-Game.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Writing and the Objectification of Language

The Use-Mention distinction is more than a topic in Philosophy of Language--the latter would seem to be impossible without it. For, any discussion of Language entails the using of Language to mention Language. Or, to put it another way, Philosophy of Language entails the objectification of Language. Now, how such objectification is even possible is unclear, i. e. the Referential function of Language falls short of explaining self-reference, as do the other usual characterizations of it--Sense, Extension, Intension, Denotation, Connotation, etc. Instead, a clue to its ground comes from ordinary linguistic activity, i. e. quoting objectifies what is quoted, and, indeed, the Mention of an expression relies on the same convention as quotation--the use of quotation marks. Even within speech, except for someone with great tonal flexibility, quotation is usually difficult to distinguish, so recourse to the expression 'quote. . . unquote' is the standard demarcation of objectification therein. Hence, it is in writing that the objectification of Language becomes fully possible, and, so, the basis of the Use-Mention distinction is the contrast between Speech and Writing. Frege and Russell are usually cited as the fathers of contemporary Philosophy of Language, but the thinker with the deepest understanding of Language is the one who has the greatest insight into the essence of Philosophy of Language. That would be someone generally marginalized by most followers of Frege and Russell, namely Derrida, the pioneer of the exploration of the distinction between Speech and Writing.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Use and Mention

One of the cardinal principles of Set Theory is that a set cannot be a member of itself. On the other hand, the Extension of any linguistic term is the set of all objects to which the term applies. Hence, the Extension of 'term' is every word in language. But, 'term' is itself a word. Therefore, 'term' is a set which includes itself, apparently contradicting the Set Theory principle, and likewise for 'word', 'definition', and other expressions, even 'language' itself. The standard resolution of this apparent contradiction reflects the priorities of the Philosophers of Language who are confronted with it. As useful as the notion Extension is, and as central as Philosophy of Language is, to them, the resources of Set Theory are fundamental to their enterprise, so it is the principles of the latter that are least compromisable. Hence, the standard solution is to trace the problem to an equivocation in expressions like 'term' et al., the disambiguation of which is accomplished by distinguishing between the 'use' and the 'mention' of an expression, thereby preserving the distinction between Set and Member. But, the efficiency of this solution comes at the expense of obscuring an important capacity of Language--its potential self-relatedness. Such self-relatedness might be an inconvenience to those theories, but Philosophy of Language would be impossible without at least some homogeneity surviving the separation of Mention from Use.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Language and Intension

The complement, in many Philosophies of Language, of Extension is Intension. While the Extension of a word is given as the set of all objects to which the term applies, its Intension is the set of properties shared by every object to which it applies. Hence, standard dictionary definitions are Intensional, and examples such as 'unicorn', which has an Intension, but no Extension, support theories which assert the primacy of Intensionality in Language. Cassirer's contrast of grasping to pointing suggests the relation between Intension and Extension, respectively, with possession as its basis, i. e. to know the dictionary definition of a word is to possess its meaning, and, thereby, is to possess information about any object to which the word applies. Now, just as, in Formaterialism, linguistic Extension is a mode of the Material Principle of an Individual, Exposition, linguistic Intension is a mode of the Formal Principle, Propriation, i. e. 'becoming-one's-own'. Hence, that an Individual is constituted by both Principles, in combination, suggests that Language is both Intensional and Extensional.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Language and Extension

The most usual use of the term 'extension' in the context of Philosophy of Language is with respect to theory of Meaning. The 'extension' of a word is generally defined as the set of objects to which the word applies, in contrast with its 'intension', which is either a concept or an expression taken to be equivalent to the word. In some theories, extension is primary, and intension derivative, so they can be described as espousing an 'Extensional' theory of Meaning. This notion of 'extension' is clearly similar, if not equivalent, to 'reference', with the characterization that a word points to the objects to which it applies. Now, as previously discussed, the act of pointing presupposes an act of extension that precedes its referential function, namely the act of one's raising one's arm and straightening out a finger. The latter demonstrates a literal sense of 'extension', namely, someone's stretching themselves out beyond given parameters, which to theories such as Nietzsche's Will to Power, or Formaterial here, expresses a fundamental existential drive to extend oneself, e. g. The Material Principle, 'Exposition', in Formaterialism. Cartesian 'Extension' is nothing more than an hypostasization of this drive. Accordingly, Language, in general, is one mode, along with e. g. locomotility, of existenial Extensionalism. So, the extensional function of a Word is itself an extension of existential Extensionalism.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Varieties of Meaning

If, inn encountering person B, A were to perceive B as having their arm and finger extended away from their body, A could progressively draw a variety of inferences. First, that B's posture was preceded by a raising of the arm and a pointing of a finger. Second, that B intentionally raised their arm and pointed a finger. Third, that B intentionally raised their arm and pointed a finger in order to communicate something to A, or to anybody else in the vicinity. Finally, that B intentionally raised their arm and pointed a finger so that A, or anybody else, would draw an imaginary line from the tip of B's finger to some object at some distance away from the finger. Also, Cassirer cites studies that suggest that finger-pointing is derived from grasping with the hand. So, B's extended finger can be a sign of any of the following--a bodily movement, an intention, an expression, and a vicarious grasping--before it is taken as a pointing. Similarly, Causality, Intention, Expression, and Connotation can all explain Meaning independently of Reference. And, since that a phenomenon depends on the drawing of an inference to transform it into a sign of any kind, Inference is, at minimum, a necessary characteristic of Meaning.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Cassirer and Reference

Cassirer, and Langer after him, hold that what essentially distinguishes Humanity from the rest of the animals is its Symbol-making and -using activities. Cassirer cites, as a decisive evolutionary moment, when an extension of a finger becomes a pointing at something beyond the finger. For, it is at this moment that what had been, at most, an immediate gesture, becomes freed from materiality and specificity, so that Language discovers its potential as a representational medium, i. e. as Symbolic. But, there are two shortcomings to the primacy that he thereby accords to the referential function of Language. First, how finger-extension becomes meaningful, let alone referential, cannot be explained by a Referential theory of Meaning. Secondly, what many believe to be the distinctive characteristic of Humanity, namely its Rationality, is epitomized by non-referential inferential activities, e. g. syllogistic reasoning. In other words, Reference can account for neither its origin as meaningful nor its supplanting by Inference. More generally, Cassirer's and Langer's thesis is internally incoherent--that Symbol-making and -using is an end-in-itself entails that the ultimate value of a Symbol is non-referential, but a Symbol, on their account, is essentially referential.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Self-Expression

To define, or to interpret, is to produce an expression. To define 'define', or to interpret 'interpret', is to produce an expression an instance of which is the process that produces the expression. Hence, Definition, and Interpretation, are self-instantiating. But, 'instantiation' is a characterization from the perspective of generality, i. e. given an expression, which is general, an act which the answers the description presented by the expression, is an instance of it, so instantiation proceeds from general to particular. In contrast, 'self-exemplification' originates in the particular, from which generalization emerges, e. g. as Kantian 'universalization' is rarely appreciated as meaning. Similarly, Definition and Interpretation are self-expressive processes, i. e. they are processes of coming-to-expression in which what the produced expression expresses, first and foremost, is the process that produces it. Hence, the usual use of 'self-expression'--i. e. in which there is a pre-existing 'self', e. g. an artist, that proceeds to produce an expression, the content of which pre-exists the act of expression, e. g. a mood of the artist--is derivative.