Get Email Updates • Email this Topic • Print this Page
(2) Necessarily, Words=symbols, sounds. (premise is logically true)
I think I see where you're coming from now.
Thanks.
I had thought that you were committing the modal fallacy, but I didn't consider that the proposition "words are symbols" is true by definition and thus not a contingent truth.
I wouldn't put up a fight against the use of the word "set," but I would still prefer to use the word "class."
Referring terms refer to their referents independent of our individual use of the terms. Yes, you can use terms to refer to things, but the actual terms themselves refer despite how you use terms. A child can mistakenly use the term "horse" when referring to a zebra, but never is it true that the term, "horse" actually refers to zebras.
The tiger is fierce
is true if you didn't know whether "the tiger" meant the tiger standing before me, or if I meant all tigers? You don't know this. Therefore, we have conventions of use. The word doesn't just "magically" have reference.
If you utter the sentence, "the tiger is fierce," then the sentence expresses a proposition that is either true or false, and it does so despite the fact that I do not know whether the proposition being expressed is true or false, even when I don't know because I'm unaware of the context in which the sentence is uttered. Truth (after all) is independent of knowledge.
Actually, we ARE talking about the same subject, namely, the possibility of reference without context, or without intentions. But we're not talking about the same problem.
I didn't say the proposition expressed by it is not merely known to be true or false, or that you just don't know whether it is true or false. I said, there is not any proposition expressed by the sentence at all. On the surface of it, I just mean exactly what I say, "the tiger is fierce," and I assure you, I don't mean all tigers, some tigers, or a tiger. I just mean "The tiger is fierce." You and I are walking down the street together when I say this to you. It only appears meaningful, but it is not clear what that meaning is. Therefore, words just don't magically have reference without a context.
Do you think my sounds and symbols are magical without my intentions? Do you think my words magically have meaning merely because I can string the letters "a"-"b"-"c"-"d"-"e"-"f"-"g" together on paper, or uttter "a"-"b"-"c"-"d"-"e"-"f"-"g"- together in what appears and sounds to you like a sentence with the same syntax and grammatical structure just like any other sentence you can understand? In this case of the the tiger, there is nothing about the tiger that gets said, there is nothing about the tiger that gets understood, and there is nothing about the tiger that is truth-valuable by my merely uttering the sentence, simply because I myself don't know what I mean by the "the tiger." I just mean, "The tiger is fierce." Therefore, words just don't magically have reference without context.
So can you tell me what proposition I mean to express by this sentence, if I just told you what I meant, now that you know my intentions, or "lack" thereof?
But words just don't magically refer or mean things without a context and without speaker intentions.
Precisely, because you don't know the context or my intentions. This should be obvious to you by now.
I think that Russell held that "this" and "that" were logically proper names because they could not fail to refer when uttered.
But if I don't intend to pick out an object by my use of "the" in my utterance of the sentence "the tiger is fierce"--what proposition is it that I am asserting by my use of that sentence? None. I am being duplicitous concerning my own intentions. So the speaker (myself) is violating the rules of language use, because he is acting like he is asserting something, but he is not. So, context and speaker intention tell us which proposition gets expressed by that sentence, and if there is no context, and there is no intention, then there is no proposition that is expressed.
That's right, since "the" and "that" are ostensible terms which are meant to pick out an object. But if I don't intend to pick out an object by my use of "the" in my utterance of the sentence "the tiger is fierce"--what proposition is it that I am asserting by my use of that sentence? None. I am being duplicitous concerning my own intentions. So the speaker (myself) is violating the rules of language use, because he is acting like he is asserting something, but he is not. So, context and speaker intention tell us which proposition gets expressed by that sentence, and if there is no context, and there is no intention, then there is no proposition that is expressed.
This is why sentences have to be distinct from propositions. Which propositions get expressed by those sentences are entirely dependent on context, meaning, and speaker intention.
All I need to do to construct a sentence that is grammatically and syntactically well-formed, on the other hand, is to obey the grammatical and syntactical rules of my own language that I am using. But I don't have to have any intentions. That is why the sentence "the tiger is fierce" is so deceptive, because it is not saying or expressing anything (a proposition) just out of the blue. You need context and intention.
Even in fiction we have a context, and statements made within fiction are truth-valuable. The context is fiction, and the intention is the writer's intention. So words don't magically have reference (but they might have some meaning in and of themselves) without context and intention.
But if Russell is right, then what you wrote:
But words just don't magically refer or mean things without a context and without speaker intentions.
seems to be wrong, since "this" or "that" refer without context, and without speaker intentions.
In that case, Russell would be wrong. Obviously so. And I'm pretty sure Kaplan would say so, too.
Well, I don't want to reduce it to a battle between Russell and Kaplan. I was simply pointing out, that if there are logically proper names, then some terms do refer without speaker intentions.
Very interesting discussion. Have found myself to be in basic agreement with the position you've taken on this issue. The sentence 'The tiger is fierce" has a meaning but that meaning has to be distinguished from what is said by the use of the sentence on a given occasion. What is said by the use of a sentence can be foolish or wise, true or false, but the meaning of the sentence can't be any of these.
But I don't think you are violating the rules of language use by uttering that particular sentence. Although you may have broken some moral ones.
The rules aren't broken by merely uttering the sentence. The rules are broken by intending to say something truthful, without having specified a context or having pointed to anything, by using that sentence. "The tiger is fierce" is just like this if I intended to say something truthful without pointing to any tigers, or if I am unclear whether or not I am talking about all tigers.
And the rules just are "moral" rules in this case. That's what rules are. What ought, and ought not to be said, in a given context if you intend on saying something truthful. Language rules are about correct use of language, not the mentioning of terms within a language. that's why I haven't broken any rules by mentioning, "the tiger is fierce"--since I am not intending to say anything by mentioning it.
---------- Post added 04-01-2010 at 08:07 PM ----------
Actually, now I am thinking that, ideally, everything I am saying about
"The tiger is fierce"
is correct,
but that in most cases, I think speaker intention would be immediately given--by intonation, phonetics, voice inflection, body language, etc-- if you heard someone intending to say something truthful by using this sentence. In other words, the speaker's intentions would immediately fall out of these other variables so that you could quickly tell that what the person really implied was that,
"All tigers are fierce."
But then it is immediately truth-valuable, and does say something. So I think the speaker implications have to be taken into account. But I am not so much concerned with speaker implications, I am concerned with somebody insisting on using a sentence purportedly expressing something true, but for which reference fails to happen altogether. In that case, the speaker is violating the rules of language use.
So I am really not sure that somebody is saying anything at all in the following scenario.
Suppose a kung fu student wants to learn "the moves of the tiger" from his kung fu master and he asks, "master, would you teach me the moves of the tiger"? And suppose his master asks him why he wants to learn the "kung fu moves of a tiger,"--and the student says, "because master, the tiger is fierce." It might look like this:
If the student who uses the the sentence "the tiger is fierce" in order to express something truthful without being committed to the truth of the proposition expresses by "all tigers are fierce," or without pointing to any tiger and intending to mean "that tiger is fierce," then he is not saying anything at all--and he is violating the rules of language.
After all, it's easy to imagine that the master is also some pompous philosopher who studies logic in his own spare time, and then asks the student rather condescendingly, "come on, son, you don't really think all tigers are fierce, do you? I am sure their are some tigers that are really cowards." And the student said, "of course not master, I wouldn't think that." But suppose the logical kung fu master then asks his student, "well, do you mean that you have some particular tiger in mind when you say 'the tiger is fierce'"? And if the student said "no, I don't have any particular tiger in mind that I am thinking about," but still insisted that the tiger is fierce, then the student wouldn't be saying anything by his use of that sentence.
So the master then says to the student, "Ok, I get it, then. You just think the tiger is fierce, but don't think all tigers are fierce. And you're not acually thinking about the any particular tiger when you use that sentence, either. But you still insist on asserting that it is true that the tiger is fierce." And if the student said, "yes, I think it is true that the tiger is fierce, even though I don't think all tigers are fierce, nor am I thinking of any particular tiger that is fierce when I say that either. Nor am I saying that some tigers are fierce. I just think that 'the tiger is fierce' is true. Of course it is true. Who would think that the tiger wasn't fierce anyway? The tiger is just a fierce creature, even though not all tigers are fierce. And moreover, it is true that the tiger is a fierce creature." then the student would not be saying anything at all, because no one could even determine what it is that he is even saying! "All"? "Some"? "One"? What is "the tiger" referring to at all? And even more, what does the student mean by using it? Maybe truth and meaning are intimately connected to linguistic reference somehow, necessarily so, so that they have to be so connected to make sense of purportedly truthful propostions?
How can the alleged proposition expressed by this sentence even be true or false, since there are no entities, or class of entities, to which the student is intending to refer by his use of that sentence, "the tiger is fierce."? So no reference is made to anything, so the alleged proposition expressed by that sentences is not even truth-valuable at all!! It's truth value is indeterminate, but purported by the student to be true, and so nothing is being said.
""The tiger is fierce" is true even though I don't know how it could be."
huh? That's just weird!
What, exactly, is being said here?