Phenomenological Issues

It's a mistake to look for metaphysical 'grounds' for theorising in general, since there isn't any relevant way of distinguishing metaphysical hypotheses from other kinds. Our capacity to form hypotheses - our capacity to talk about the world - isn't rendered more intelligible by the generation of further hypotheses of the same kind as those which we are trying to illuminate.

Our capacity to talk cannot, itself, by rendered hypothetical. Therefore, realism may only be a consequence of the possibility of language: it certainly can't underpin it.

Most of us think of our internal experience - our phenomenological states - as contributing to our ability to speak: we can talk about the world because we sense it, and we have a direct experience of what these sensations are.

Cases of sensory deprivation leading to specific linguistic incompetence support this: blind people cannot identify colours, nor deaf people sounds.

But we need to separate two things here:

(1) What we say about our internal states.
(2) The internal states 'in themselves'.

We can clearly talk about our internal states. However, we can only talk about them as represented in language.

I can say 'I see a bright light', but I cannot independently identify my seeing of a bright light except by making this statement (or one equivalent). The condition of seeing a bright light is irreducibly intentional.

Also, this is a public, not a private condition to be in: we can have an argument about whether I really did see a white light - or whether I made a mistake, or am telling a lie. This is true of the most primitive sensory reports - even those which look like candidates for 'sense data'.

Error and deceit are features of the reporting stage, however: I can't be mistaken or dishonest about my internal experiences in themselves. I also can't share them 'in themselves'. (There's even something metaphorical and indirect about this way of talking.)

The states 'in themselves' are beetles in boxes (PI 293). We all have them, but they only come into theoretical focus, or even appear to be shared, when we talk about them. This is why 'consciousness' in this sense can never be the subject of scientific enquiry: it stands just outside the realm of any possible articulated enquiry.

The apparent link between these phenomenological processes and being able to speak - knowing the truth about the world by being acquainted with it through sensation - is, itself, a phenomenological intuition. We might as well say about it that it is our internal experience of our capacity to speak. This is such a disturbing thought that many people find it impossible to entertain, but it becomes obvious after a little reflection: my only incontrovertable grounds for thinking you might have the same intuitions as I have are found in what you say about them.

You might say that I have grounds in your behaviour, but these are not incontrovertible - for Kripkean (Rules and Private Language) reasons. The interpretation of behaviour is always corrigible, but you can only doubt what I say about my phenomenological states by doubting my linguistic competency or my honesty. In both cases, you are doubting whether we are, in fact, conversing in good faith - you are doubting whether we are really talking.

Aha ...

I've just spotted a difficulty, which I need to scope out:

'I can talk' looks empirical, as does 'You can talk'. For Moorean reasons, they may be slightly different.

Of course, 'You can talk' looks like 'You can walk'. But there are empirical tests which we can agree on for 'You can walk' (without which the statement would begin to lose its meaning ... ).

But while there are some similar empirical tests for 'You can talk', they aren't relevant to the fundamental case that I want to depend on. We might check whether a recovering stroke victim can talk, but we can't 'check' whether 'You can talk' is in general true: in the second sense, there is a normative factor associated with the radical translation argument. I decide (for me) that you can talk - even if only tacitly, by talking to you.

We may, of course decide what 'counts' as 'walking' as well, of course. (And we can probably completely articulate this within general tacit constraints).

But we can still talk even if we can't agree on what counts as walking ...

'Socialisation'...

We might as well call a 'socialised' individual one who can participate in and be represented within the conversation we are now having.

I'd probably have to say 'represented as a person' or 'represented as intelligible' ... which may make this a bit muddy?

Bloor (and others) on enthusiasm, private languages etc.

The private language argument is an also an anti-sceptical argument.

The issue is not whether there can be, in some representation of cognitive processing, something that looks like a private language (or, indeed, a 'language of thought') - a signalling system, for instance, that has a syntactical structure.

It is, instead, whether this thing that looks like a private language can have meanings attributed to its 'signals' that do not depend upon the meanings of language game within which it is described. Bloor thinks of a social matrix, or socialisation here. Wittgenstein is vague, but points to the need for public tests of some kinds. Locke refers to reason ...

As Bloor says, (p55, Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions), arguments of this kind cannot 'claim absolute cogency or a decisive victory'.

But he's making the same mistake as Quine did - having found a concrete narrative (science, society) of the process which seems to exemplify or underpin public rationality, he mistakes the content for the form. It's like believing a laptop can think, or believing a word processor can speak because it can check grammar.

The normative aspects of attributing meaning, or rationality, cannot be captured in this kind of concrete narrative. Not only is there an open question problem here - about the normative status of the narrative, about it's capacity to confer validity on the processes it seeks to explain - but the very nature of the narrative itself is called into question. What is 'society' or 'socialisation'? If it becomes just 'what underpins rationality' (Spinoza? !), then this empties the narrative of content and the explanation of sense.

And , of course, the narrative depends, for its meaning, on the very categories it seeks to explain (truth, rule following, knoweldge). And, sadly, it can only claim to support them by trying to deny or marginalise the very aspect of them that we most want explained: the validity of their content.

If, on the other hand, we show that these categories can be recursively grounded in our ability to talk about things - an ability which needs no further exposition, since querying it is unintelligible - then we not only have the fundamental argument that Bloor denies is possible, but we also avoid the open question trap.

'Essential' metaphysics ...

Is it possible that being a Platonist makes it easier to do mathematics?

There's no reason why not, and plenty of pointers in the opposite direction: religious people are often better able to survive misery; people with less imagination may be less distracted by fear ...

None of these amount to arguments for the substantive positions, but if the 'heuristic postulate' was true, how should we respond?

Personally, I'd rather do philosophy. Is it impossible to be a good philosopher of mathematics and also a good mathematician?

Scientists tend to be naïve sensory empiricists. Could they do such good science if they weren't?

What delusions must a philosopher entertain in order to be good at philosophy?

Version 10
More on meaning and meaningfulness.

The dogma of any discipline is meaningless within the discipline - empirical science and religion are on equal footing in this respect. Where they are not on an equal footing is with respect to their scope:

It's quite easy to avoid language which makes religious presuppositions, but almost impossible to avoid language which makes scientific presuppositions. We can talk about the world without talking about God, but we can't talk about the world without talking about the world ...

Version 9
Working changes. Not very important.

Irrationality and games

In certain games, it can be wise to undermine your opponents' confidence in your rationality.

In a language game, we are engaged in constructing rationality: in negotiating the conditions of sense-making. In a commercial language game, the material dimensions of this negotiation can't be ignored. They partly determine what makes sense, but they also partly determine which aspects of the negotiation have to remain tacit.

In any language game - in any conversation - some of this negotiation is tacit, of course, but we think this can be ignored in 'scientific' or 'academic' language games.

But even in an ideal academic conversation ideas are products that are bought and sold ...

Commercial language

The reason this needs a closer look is because it provides a useful model of tacit negotiation over what makes sense.

In a commercial discussion, the material objectives of the parties tacitly (from the point of view of the language of the discussion) constrain the sense making opportunities. However a commercial negotiation can only continue if there is a working language within which to negotiate.

In this context, the comforting metaphors which inform the philosophical discussions of scientific truth telling look much less credible.

Even when we're standing at the door holding the key, we find that there's a particular way of turning it - a special flick of the wrist - that we need to learn.

Metalanguages ...

The one above the one we're using - in which a theory of truth for our language could be formulated - cannot be translated, and, so, cannot be recognised as a language ...

The one below, which we can give an account of, is reduced to syntax, rules, and symbols. It's meaning has been relegated to 'interpretation' and lost to truth-telling. Is it a language or a board game?

Neurath's Boat

It isn's just the planks and frames that keep the boat afloat, but also the conceptions of the sailors: their plans of the boat, their principles of naval architecture, the epistemological foundations of both ...

Which is why they can never have a complete design, never mind do a complete rebuild.

While it might seem intelligible to wonder about the foundations of any knowledge that we have, and to seek arguments for its reliability, it is a serious mistake to seek an argument for the possibility of intelligible conversation. If argument is possible, then so is intelligible conversation.

This doesn't mean that questions such as 'how do we speak?' and 'how can we speak?' don't make sense in certain contexts - e.g. the neurology of language, linguistic theory etc.. These disciplines can give us insights into the mechanical or computational processes involved in speech, or into linguistic structure. They may even show us how certain structures or processes are necessary for reliable communication, in the sense that (under interpretation) all languages incorporate these structures and processes.

What they cannot show is that some set of mechanical, cognitive, or structural criteria guarantee intelligibility - are not just necessary, but also sufficient. This is a corollary of Davidson's observations on interpretation - that there is always more than one solution to the translation problem, because we must make assumptions about the normative, epistemological, and motivational character of any potential interlocutor. The 'Principle of Charity' renders the interoluctor 'human', but not only is this a normative posture adopted by the translator, there are also quite likely ot be different renderings of this humanity.

We cannot get from grunts to sense without making normative choices, however 'obvious' these choices might seem to a routine user of a human language.

And yet sense is guaranteed, within any conversation, by the possibility of that conversation. 'This conversation is impossible' is not a possible conversational move.

Neurological, cognitive, and linguistic theories - or, indeed, epistemological theories - are all parts of some intelligible conversation or another. They cannot provide a better demonstration of the intelligibility of that conversation than their own intelligibility already guarantees.

To ask a question about that intelligibility is to ask a question about the possibility of asking questions.

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 ...)

The Private Language Argument

The problem with trying to construct a private language is that it can't count as a language - it can't be translated.

Only public languages can be translated.

It isn't so much that we wouldn't be able to check our rule following, as that intelligibility is conferred by public descriptions and explanations.

If I was the last human being, and was 'writing' this, I would really be saying nothing (whatever my delusions). At best, I would be acting out my own (unintelligible) nature.

Or I might be making notes for myself to read later ...

Whatever that would mean?

In fact, there's maybe an even better way of putting it:

If I talk of a group (Group S) having a 'social norm', or of sharing a judgement (N), I am saying to the participants in my conversation (Group E) that this is the case. If the shared norm or judgement of Group S is expressed in the language of group S, then the norm must also be intelligible in the language of Group E. Otherwise we would have to doubt whether we had a correct translation (Davidson and Quine).

What I'm saying here is that if we understand the language of Group S, then we understand N.

Here's a slightly contentious step: If we understand N, then we understand how to adhere to N, at least in principle. This means that, even if we believe N to be a 'bad' norm for us, we understand how Group S has come by it. For a shared conversation to work (one that included S and E), we would need to resolve this dissonance - either S would come to reject N, or we would come to accept N, or we would both adhere to a norm N' which gave a contingent account of N that we could both accept (S would see that there were circumstances in which N didn't hold, and we would see that there were circumstances in which it did).

If, despite our best efforts, we cannot achieve a shared conversation between E and S because we cannot reach an accommodation over N, then we have, again, to be sceptical about our understanding of N, and, therefore, of our judgement that we can attribute this norm to S.

Kripke's presentation of his paradox is deceptive because 'quadding' is intelligible to us, as are a great many (maybe infinitely many) other rules that a subject might be following.

But each one of them can receive the 'N' treatment, or it doesn't count as a rule. In other words, the paradox relies on a dissonance which can always be resolved.

If we could never guess, nor check, which rule a subject was following, why would we imagine they were following a rule at all? Can it make sense to say they are definitely following a rule, but not one of the ones we have been able to check? (This is beginning to sound like Gregory Chaitin territory ...).

If we try to recast Kripke, in line with this suggestion, we find ourselves saying that we can never guarantee that our interpretation of someone's behaviour as intelligible is correct. This doesn't seem so radical.

This approach also solves a problem for 'group judgements': there is nothing especially privileged about a group over an individual with respect to the private language argument. Each may make exactly the same mistake - judging that they are following a rule when they are not. This is perfectly clear from real examples of groups amending judgements about social norms under economic or political pressure.

What is not possible is to speculate that the rules of the conversation within which we are speculating may vary in a way which fundamentally changes the nature of the activity of speculation.