Andrea, Marco, Platt, Jon, All,
Ciao.
Long one.
It looks like Andrea has really read her Wittgenstein. This discussion is
getting to the heart of some of my concerns now, although I will stop short
of Wittgenstein's rule following argument (next time). As a preface to my
remarks, I'll bring up a passage in Lila that seems relevant just now to
some of Andrea's remarks:
pp73/74
"Of the two kinds of hostility to metaphysics he considered the mystics'
hostility the more formidable. Mystics will tell you that once you've
opened the door to metaphysics you can say good-bye to any genuine
understanding of reality. Thought is not a path to reality. It sets
obstacles in that path because once you try to use thought to approach
something that is prior to thought your thinking does not carry you toward
that something. It carries you away from it. To define something is to
subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual relationships. And when you do
that you destroy any real understanding.
The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had
called "Quality" in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess peice.
Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition,
ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independant of and
prior to intellectual abstractions.
Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense
that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these
things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable, and knowable, or there
isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of
dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition,
this means that a "Metaphysics of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in
terms, a logical absurdity.
It would be almost like a mathematical definition of randomness.
The more you try to say what randomness is, the less random it becomes. Or
"zero" or "space" for thtat matter. Today these terms are almost nothing to
do with "nothing". "Zero" and "space" are complex relationships of
"somethingness". If he said anything about the scientific nature of mystic
understanding, science might benefit, but the actual mystic understanding
would, if anthing, be injured. If he really wanted to do Quality a favour
he should just leave it alone.
[This is essentially the Wittgensteinian possition in the Tractatus (and
perhaps latter too), where value is a "That whereof we cannot speak, thereof
we must remain silent"]
What made all this so formidable to Phaedrus was that he himself
had insisted in his book that Quality cannot be defined. Yet here he was
about to define it. Was this some kind of sell out? His mind went over
this many times.
A part of it said, "Don't do it. You'll get into nothing but
trouble. You're going to start up a thousand dumb arguments about something
that was perfectly clear until you came along. You're going to make ten
thousand opponents and zero friends because the moment you open your mouth
to say one thing about the nature of reality you automatically have a whole
set of enemies who've already said that reality is something else."
The trouble was, this was only one part of him talking. There
was another part that kept saying "Ahh, do it anyway. It's interesting."
This was the intellectual part that didn't like undefined things, and
telling it not to define Quality was like telling a fat man to stay out of
the refrigerator, or an alcoholic to stay out of bars. To the intellect the
process of defining Quality has a compulsive quality of its own. It
produces a certain excitement even though it leaves a hangover afterward,
like too many cigarettes, or a party that lasted too long. Or Lila last
night. It isn't anything of lasting beauty; no joy forever. What would you
call it? Degeneracy, he guessed. Writing a metaphysics is, in the
strictest mystic sense, a degenerate activity.
But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless,
doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's
the degereacy fanatics are made of. Purity, identified, ceases to be
purity. Objections to pollution are a form of pollution. The only person
who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical
meanings is a person who hasn't been born - and to whose birth no though has
been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less pure.
Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of
life. That was all he had to say to the mystical objection to a Metaphysics
of Quality. He next turned to those of logical positivism."
I think this expresses rather well my own thought that metaphysics is not
something local and illiminable (like a game), but the essential project of
all intelligence everywhere. Although they might not use the word,
everybody has a 'metaphysics', and all aim in this metaphysics at
establishing something that ought to be agreed on (the 'truth'). That said,
we can consider some recent developments.
Now,
About metaphysics as a 'language game'....
About the denial of absolute truth as a 'move' in a 'language game'....
PLATT (in another thread and in response to Jon):
>> I cannot agree with a tenet based on a logical absurdity. The tenet
>> posits an absolute truth that denies an absolute truth. Its a self-
>> contradiction , similar to statements like all generalizations are false
>> and no one can be certain of anything.
ANDREA:
> Now, "there is no Absolute Truth", as a part of language, has a meaning, or
> more precisely a *role*, within an interaction. Wittgenstein would say that
> it is a *move* in a game. For all I know, Platt may be completely aware of
> the game going on with the postmodernist, and his can be a perfectly legal
> move. But I think that the average person, reading the sentence above, could
> consider it as perfectly meaningful in itself. It may seem that Platt is of
> course *right*.
>
> But the non obvious point is that if we look at Platt's comment as
> meaningful in itself, we do so because we believe that all context is there,
> and thus, that he (sorry - is Platt a "he"?) is taking the postmodernist
> sentence "literally". But this is absurd if you think twice. At least
> "Absolute" and "Truth" have no obvious, exact definition, and I don't think
> any of us would have an easy job finding one. How can you comment on the
> literal meaning of the sentence if you don't know what the postmodernist are
> saying about what?
ELEPHANT:
The last is a good point, also, perhaps, to be made about the various
answers to the questions: 'does god exist?' and 'is Plato's theory of forms
false?' and the like. And you are right: neither "absolute" nor "truth"
have any obvious definition. But that isn't an argument to show that they
couldn't have a definition if we actually tried to give them one, and it
isn't, either, to show that such a definition couldn't be completely exact.
In fact that was a project that the posting that started this thread, on
Plato and Parmenides, was a continuation of, or postscript to. Take a look
at my postings on Plato, truth, essences, forms (round about new-year I
think). Such a discursive definition of truth as I give there (attributing
it to Plato) isn't based on an attempt to capture the continuum in discrete
terms, but on purely analytic considerations. There is such a thing as a
contradiction in terms, as you know, and pointing such a thing out is more,
I'll warrant, than merely a move in a 'game'. It is one of the rules for
'being serious' (Plato is always telling us to 'stop kidding'). But we'll
come back to that - because of course Wittgenstein (and Andrea) will say
that 'being serious' in this way is just another kind of 'language-game'.
ANDREA:
> The postmodernists' motto is really a move in a game. You cannot say what it
> *means*; you can give an interpretation, that is, reformulate it in other
> words. For example, here is a possible translation (that I'm not ascribing
> to the postmodernist or anyone else): "I would feel abused if anyone tried
> to impose what s/he believes to be the Truth on me;
> and I also wouldn't believe that s/he has means whereby s/he can prove,
> beyond doubt, to be speaking the Truth
> and/or to have the right to impose it." Here's another, possibly coming from
> a Nazi doctor working in a concentration camp: "You can't judge my acts, for
> there is no Absolute Truth".
ELEPHANT:
I'd say that it was an awareness of that latter type of argument which got
me worried enough (as a boy) to be interested in Philosophy in the first
place. Compare Orwell's 1984. Compare Iris Murdoch's observation re
Wittgenstein: "Is there any reason why a 'language game' could not be a
totalitarian state?" None. Wittgenstein would doubtless offer that not all
language games are totalitarian states, and that the ability of an account
of language use to describe totalitarian language use is one point in its
favour. But that rather misses Murdoch's point, I feel. Her point is that
in a sense *all* language is a totalitarian state, once it is conceived of
simply as series of games. 'Game' is a nice friendly sounding word, but the
problem with games is that they are what they are invirtue of agreement on
the rules. But in Philosophy, or alteast in Philosophy as Phaedrus and
Socrates would both conceive of it, what we are trying to do is question
just those rules. If language is just a series of games, why then, and
fatally for Socrates, you may feel justified in saying that anyone who
doesn't do things the way you want them done is simply playing some other
game: and not the game which you play. It seems that the possibility of
genuine communication, or interogation, of Socrates having something to say
that might make you alter your way of life, is gone. Socrates may be
resposible for corrupting the youth by playing the wrong games with them,
but nothing he can say can really be about the truth.
The Wittgensteinian counter argument would be that of course it is possible
to make local moves within a larger language game, and that some of these
moves constitute the "disagreement", in the way that some moves in tennis
constitute 30/40. That might be viable, but it rather depends on one
crucial area of unclarity in Wittgenstein's thought which Murdoch, again,
picks out: how large or small, local or general, is a 'language game'
anyway? What is it to play according to the rules of this particular game,
and how do you know when you have done so? What differentiates a move in a
language game from the invention of a new game within which the 'move' is
not a 'move' but a 'rule'? I have asked these questions of Wittgensteinians
for many a year without an answer. Mostly, they seem to think that if this
is a general problem, then it is merely one more problematic facet to be
added to The Human Condition, and no way to argue against Wittgenstein. For
the conception of Language games aren't just arrived at for no reason: there
is the famous Rule-Following Argument to contend with. I have things to say
about that too, but for now I leave it to Andrea to explain that argument.
ANDREA:
> Could language be associated to meaning by something less loose? The
> positivists tried, and they came out with the idea (that I agree with) that
> language may have an exact meaning (provided you do a little positivist
> mirror-climbing to conceal minor problems here and there) as long as you
> speak of "scientific facts". To speak of scientific facts, you have to do
> two things: first, think SOM; then, speak only of functions and never of
> value. Language from any other standpoint and directed towards any other
> purpose is not precise.
ELEPHANT:
Pirsig successfully argues, as have many other Pragmatists, that this 'never
speaking of value' is a delusion (the mirror climbing you speak of?).
Objects and Facts come from value, and anybody who speaks of facts is
ultimately speaking of value. But it should not be forgotten that Plato,
2000 years ago, when he said that all the objects of this world (of
becoming) are apprended 'in the light of the good', was saying *exactly the
same thing*. And Plato thought that this idea was perfectly compatible with
some extremely precise reflections about what this Form of the Good is and
is not. In the Republic we deal mostly in metaphor (the sun, the fire, the
divided line etc), but there are other dialogues (theatetus, sophist, to
name but two) where the language used to describe the forms is made very
precise indeed. Why should awareness of the fundamental reality of value
work against precision in anything? This I do not understand. Is it a
hang-over from the old idea that value is subjective, relative to the
subject and 'personal opinion' and so on? Well that type of reasoning has
no place in either Platonic Metaphysics or MOQ: value is more real than any
subject, and here we are talking of that reality itself, of The Good by
itself.
ANDREA:
> In retrospect, why should we care about language being precise? I don't
> think we should.
ELEPHANT:
Well we should only care about the language being properly understood,
precise or imprecise. Agreed. But in point of fact it turns out that it's
often impossible to be sure that someone else has understood you without a
very great deal of precision in your exchanges with that person. And
although this doesn't happen all the time, it happens most of all in
Philosophy. No?
ANDREA:
> I think we should consider language as a part of reality,
> as you say, and even forget the distinction between language and reality.
> That would be true if you used language as a purely social tool, as they
> probably do in some cultures around the world. But as it comes, western
> thought (the one that gave birth to positivism, among other things), have
> taught us to use it as an intellectual tool to discuss and investigate about
> what life is, what the world is, as you do in metaphysics. I can't see how
> could you doubt that. That doesn't mean that "language" itself is outside of
> the domain of discourse, of course.
ELEPHANT:
If I understand correctly, I agree completely (are you perhaps saying what I
said just previously?). But one has to add a caveat and a precisification
here, to be sure of being understood. When we talk about language being
'inside the domain of discourse' I think we mean something, or somethings,
quite specific and precise, if only we could express them precisely. I
think we mean both (1) that as a collection of characters on a computer
screen/utterances/social phenomena language is one of the things we can
describe in synthetic terms, using a rich vocabulary to express our
'observations' of a 'natural phenomenon', so to speak, but also (2) the
analytic truth that uniquely amongst the phenomena of the world Language is
responsible for appling the discrete, the samenesses and differences, unlike
Dynamic Quality which is continuous and thus by itself lacks the discrete
identies which could be 'the same' or 'different'.
Now it seems to me that different Philosophers pay different levels of
attention to (1) and (2). Of these two conceptions of language as 'within
the realm of discourse' Wittgenstein concentrates undeniably on (1). Plato
concentrates on (2). I would suggest that insofar as Wittgenstein is
talking about language-within-the- realm-of-discourse- as-a-natuaral
-phenomena, and Plato is talking about language-within-the- realm-of-
discourse-as- a-creative-power, they are talking about two different things,
and that the kinds of discourse they are talking about are also different.
Wittgensteins, ultimately, is the discourse of the natural sciences (He's
still wrapped up in those positivistic mirrors). Plato's is the discourse
of logical analysis. But logical analysis isn't positivism, as can be seen
from the fact that positivism is an ontology that doesn't make any sense,
when logically analysed.
ANDREA WROTE:
> If you state that the gap between language and reality does not exist, that
> this is a false duality, to that I agree in general. This means that your
> reality *is* your language. (Like, Pirsig stated that Newton "created"
> gravitation).
ELEPHANT:
Here again, a bit of precision might reveal that what Andrea is talking
about as the gap between language and reality and what Marco is talking
about are not the same. Marco was talking (correct me) I think about
langauge having a presence in the Dynamic Quality-reality in just the same
way that an aeroplane does. With that I agree. I also agree with Andrea
that your reality is your language, in the sense that the totality of valued
objects in the world is the totality of valued objects created in language.
However I think that this conception of the world as equivalent to the
totality of linguistically synthesised objects gives us a neat boundary to
'the world' here, which exactly paralells Plato's distinction between the
realm of becoming (the world) and the realm of being (the transcendent
forms). Because if language is doing this job of creating, so that Newton
'creates' the Law of gravity, then ultimately there must be some resources
for such acts of creation which precede all the individual acts of creation
are are themselves uncreated. I'm not talking about a first cause here, but
I am talking about the fact that you can't do a job without tools.
ANDREA:
> But I also think that when you begin talking metaphysics, you
> "pretend" not to believe this [that your reality is your language], or you're
not in the game......
ELEPHANT:
A bit of precision which Plato used might help us here. To do metaphysics
you don't have to pretend that 'the world' as in 'the world of valued
objects' is not the same as your language: it is the same: that's one of the
conclusions of our metaphysics. What you have to 'pretend' is that 'the
world' as in 'Being, the forms themselves' are not automatically the same as
what we might happen to say about them. And that's quite a different
matter, and not something which really qualities as a 'pretence' either.
For we have already seen that it isn't a matter of 'pretence' to suppose
that there are necessary beings underlying the contingent world of subjects
and objects as the resources which make such syntheses possible. One of
these, the foremost, would be Quality - which I have also called The Form of
the Good.
ANDREA:
> .... Unless you think
> that the purpose of metaphysics is that of "creating a better language",
> where "better" is only a matter of value, and has no relation whatsoever
> with "closer to the truth", because... there is no absolute truth "outside"
> language. Agreed. Really, agreed.
ELEPHANT:
On the last point, Me Too!: 'truth' is a quality that applies to linguistic
entities and no others. But I just don't understand what you mean by the
"only" in "only a matter of value". Value, as (the main) one of the
resources whose existence is primary and necessary to the subject-object
universe of linguistic static quality, can be investigated analytically. It
can be said that there are many coherent truths - and their are so long as
you are talking about a synthetic entity such as The Law of Gravity or
Poland. But when you are talking about something that can only be
understood by analysis, in terms of what it is not and cannot be, this
possibility of differing accounts of value from which your 'only' takes
force, does not exist. Pirsig's metaphysics like any metaphysics is an
attempt to deploy language better, to give a higher-quality analysis of the
situation we find ourselves in, by rejecting the incoherent as incoherent
(e.g, the idea of anthropology without values). There is no "only" about
this, nor, as I continue to be sceptical about the notion of a language
game, any sense in which such better deploymentg constitutes the playing of
a 'new game' or an 'improvement of language'. What counts is the way we use
the tool that language, even as it is, offers us now.
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