Let me calrify this: Hand me the glass wax...

---------- Post added 02-07-2010 at 01:05 PM ----------



It is all well and good to desire logic, and seek logic in language...When you are talking about truth, and even life, and myriad other notions conveyed by language, what you are talking about are moral forms, and such forms have no being, and have only meaning...If we were talking of physical forms we could use numbers, and there be strictly logical, but since we are talking of meaning only we must find their logic rather than applying logic to them... It is a wonder the French have produced so many philosophers while their language seems so illogical, and a woonder too that the Germans have produced so few, (though perhaps better) when their language seems the model of precision...If we recognize our subject, we are left with little choice but a subjective expression for a subjective experience...I think it is unavoidable...

What I meant by saying the logic of language is not that language has any bearing on logic, but that language has its own idea of logic, that the structure in a language is that logic, and that is needed to communicate.

But really dude, you talk as if you were stoned all the time. The whole time I spent writing this reply I was thinking about whether or not it was worth it, but I decided it will be worth it for entertainment at the least.

What I meant by saying the logic of language is not that language has any bearing on logic, but that language has its own idea of logic, that the structure in a language is that logic, and that is needed to communicate.

But really dude, you talk as if you were stoned all the time. The whole time I spent writing this reply I was thinking about whether or not it was worth it, but I decided it will be worth it for entertainment at the least.

It's funny that you say so of his writings because yours are just like that. I wonder, for instance, what does it even mean to say that "What I meant by saying the logic of language is not that language has any bearing on logic, but that language has its own idea of logic, that the structure in a language is that logic, and that is needed to communicate." :surrender:

It's funny that you say so of his writings because yours are just like that. I wonder, for instance, what does it even mean to say that "What I meant by saying the logic of language is not that language has any bearing on logic, but that language has its own idea of logic, that the structure in a language is that logic, and that is needed to communicate." :surrender:

Lol, sorry. Language has its own structure, e.g. its own logic. However, suppose a language allows one to say "I am a bird and not a bird", and that makes perfect sense in the language being used... obviously that is not logical, but in the language structure being used, it is.

Does that make more sense?

If I come in from the outside, and someone asks me whether it is raining, I may reply, "it is, and it isn't", meaning, "it is drizzling lightly" or , "it is raining on and off". There is nothing illogical about that. The structure of the sentence is contradictory, but anyone who speaks English knows what is meant.

So you understand what I am saying? Because you've just made my point... maybe my distinction between logic and language structure is meaningless, because maybe I mean a distinction between logic & reason together and language structure?

I'm sure that probably doesn't make sense...

We can use self-contradictory sentences to say something else, since no one ordinarily would use such a sentence to say something self-contradictory, since people do not usually utter self-contradictions intentionally. Economy of language, and a jazzy way of saying things too. We do the same kind of thing with tautologies too: for example, "war is war" or, "business is business". When use those sentences, we are not meaning to utter just a truism.

I meant an imaginary language structure in which "I am a bird and not a bird" means "I am a bird and not a bird", not something else. It would be a self-contradiction to us, but in that imaginary language structure it would make perfect sense. It's a bad example I admit, but it is meant to place a distinction between language structure and logic & reason.

Sorry, but self-contradictions are necessarily false, and therefore can describe nothing.