Language and lying

I thought for a while that lying depended on the possibility of truth-telling. So it might, but there are other kinds of deception than lying - kinds which might depend only on the possibility of interpretation (and so on presenting behaviour designed to deceive).

There are deceptions in nature - the moth with eye patterns on its wings is not literally saying 'I am the face of a dangerous creature', although it has evolved the spots to sustain this deception.

But that's *our* explanation (interpretation), of course...

Thoughts on thoughts ...

The 'phenomenology' of thinking is, possibly, one of the things we feel most familiar with - thus Descartes' infamous computation.

But we only know what each other thinks because either (a) we have drawn conclusions from behaviour or (b) we have been told by the thinker.

(a) is always corrigible (Kripke), and (b) depends on the presumption that we understand what we are saying to each other.

Actually, behaviour interpretation isn't just 'freely' corrigible - these theories, themselves, need to be intelligible to those who discuss them.

Of course we have unarticulated thoughts. And we have thoughts which could not easily (or ever) be discovered from our behaviour. But thoughts which are forever private are also forever outside the scope of public theory - and so are outside the scope of its tests of intelligibility. Private thoughts are private.

Philosophical theorising is a public business, carried on through participation in a 'language game'. In so far as unarticulated thoughts appear in philosophical theories, they appear as intelligible - articulated - interpretations of behaviour. No private thoughts appear here in any substance (perhaps all we can say is that we may have private thoughts ...).

This isn't behaviourism: I don't deny private phenomenologies. But it does seem clear that it is only when they are articulated that they engage with theory. (Articulating them is an important and creative business, of course - but we don't always do it).

Suppose we said of all these unarticulated thoughts - whether they are disengaged from public theory, or precursors to it - that they are just the private phenomenology of language users? That we only think we share the unarticulated part because we share the articulated part through our participation in the language?

This would shed a different light on the motivation to talk of 'languages of thought'. Actually, what we have is 'thoughts of language'. And, of course, these thoughts appear to have a grammar ...

The rest remain private.

Truth telling ...

The rules for truth telling are whatever rules (tacit and explicit) that we follow to make conversation possible.

Sometimes, maybe generally, tacit rules can only be made explicit by changing the rules - even to the extent of changing what we mean by 'explicit'.

The open question argument guarantees that we can never make all the rules we are using explicit (in any intelligibly translatable sense).

A language for which the rules have been made fully explicit can be treated entirely syntactically - as s signalling system, or not a language at all.

Meaning and 'transmission'

Suppose I believe that it isn't possible to talk to people. I might still know that if I utter the string "It isn't possible to talk to people" in your hearing, then you will entertain this same thought.

This is credible without any mention of meaning, because I can make you think things without 'saying' anything at all. I can make you think there is someone behind you by glancing over your shoulder.

But despite the causal process being credible, I cannot mean by my utterance that it isn't possible to talk. If I did, then I would also mean that that utterance didn't mean anything - including that it isn't possible to talk.

Suppose you were disabling a bomb, and I was instructing you. You have to choose one of two wires to cut: a red one and a blue one. If you cut the blue wire, you will be blown to bits, and if you cut the red wire the bomb will be disabled.

You don't know which wire to cut, but I do. However, you believe that I want to blow you up, and that I will tell you to cut the wrong wire. Unknown to you, I know of this belief - however, I do not want to blow you up.

I therefore tell you to cut the blue wire, knowing that you will, as a result of your belief, cut the red one.

I have transmitted a signal to you that has led you to cut the right wire, but this does not render 'Cut the red wire' as a valid translation of what I said, which was 'Cut the blue wire'.

Meaning Commitments

We need to be committed to something *intelligible* by what we say, and there's a 'public' aspect to intelligibility.

And there's also a normative aspect. We partly 'decide' to treat some moves as intelligible. We certainly decide how much effort to put into rescuing intelligibility...

(More 'private language' issues ...)