From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Sep 12 2004 - 04:07:07 BST
Howdy Focusers:
Sam said:
I have written before about Wittgenstein's view of language, principally
that language has a 'depth grammar' which relates the words spoken/written
to their context within a form of life (lebensformen). Wittgenstein's view
of language specifically breaks down the positivist view (descending from
Descartes) that sees language as composed of distinct units of sense (ie
'clear and distinct ideas') which map clearly on to 'reality'. In contrast
to this view - very much part of SOM of course - Wittgenstein's conception
is much 'thicker'; he is the one who rejects 'flatland' most profoundly.
dmb adds:
I don't know the particulars of Wittgenstein's work nor if he's the most
profound rejecter, but he's certainly not alone. Wilber calls it flatland
and Pirsig calls it SOM, but its also known as the enlightenment paradigm,
the representational, reflection, and mirror paradigms, scientific
objectivity or most simply, the Modern worldview. Rejecting it pretty much
defines postmodernism as a movement and I think its safe to say that Pirsig
is among them. I like the way Ken Wilber lays it out...
"There are many ways to summarize the limitations of the representational
paradigm, the idea that knowledge consists basically in making maps of the
world. But the simplest way to state the problem with maps is THEY LEAVE OUT
THE MAPMAKER.
..And no matter how different the various POSTMODERN attacks were, THEY WERE
ALL UNITED IN AN ATTACK ON THE REPRESENTATIONAL PARADIGM. They all perfectly
assaulted the reflection paradigm, the 'mirror of nature' paradigm - the
idea that there is a single empirical world or empirical nature. Begining
especially with Kant and running through Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Dilthey, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrid - all the great 'postmodern' theorists
- in all of them we find a powerful attack on the mapping paradigm, because
it fails to take into account the self that is making the maps in the first
place."
Sam said;
A key part of the early argument in Wittgenstein's Philosophical
Investigations is the debunking of the notion of a private language, ie one
in which the reference for words or concepts is only known to the person
developing the language. Wittgenstein shows how this is radically confused.
Language is essentially shareable and cannot be otherwise. Similarly,
Wittgenstein argues that rules must be public and verifiable, and embedded
in a social practice. So grammatical rules, but also things like mathematics
must be embedded in a social context which reinforces the rule and gives it
its sense.
dmb adds:
Right. If I follow, you're talking about the way language functions to open
up an intersubjective space. Meaning can only be transmitted to and from
those who share this "space". And that intersubjective space can only arise
out of a more basic social context and the shared experience that allows it
to make sense. If I'm getting you, it sounds like Witt is describing how
language begins. I also see echoes of Pirsig's rejection of the isolated ego
and his insistence that great ideas are only great ideas in their own
contexts. Doesn't he quote Witt, saying "we are suspended in language"?
Isn't that the point of denying the possibility of a private language? To
demonstrate that language is a shared, collective reality by nature?
Sam said:
The point about Descartes and Pirsig's revision: 'French culture exists,
therefore I am' - this is very much a part of what Wittgenstein is
debunking.
dmb says:
Pirsig asks if Descartes would have been so well recieved in other cultures
or in other times, and revises his famous saying to read: 17th century
French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am." Do you NOT see
this as a rejection of the representational paradigm and the assertion of
contextual truth instead? Do you NOT see this as asserting intellect as
dependent on that context? I do.
Sam continued:
The ironic thing is that Pirsig himself is still a Cartesian (ie an SOM
thinker) when it comes to some elements of his system. Specifically, the
idea that the fourth level is about 'the manipulation of symbols' comes
crashing down if there is any truth in Wittgenstein's perspective.
What is a symbol if not a 'clear and distinct idea'? And how can it be
manipulated in the way that Pirsig wants (eg in higher mathematics) if there
is no social lebensformen within which the rules governing that manipulation
can make sense?
dmb says:
I don't see how Pirsig is a Cartesian or how the fourth level comes crashing
down, but let me share an idea or two that might be helpful. (Paul Turner
did some excellent posts explaining the difference between third and fourth
level uses of symbols and hoped to quote him extensively, but I seem to have
lost it.) I think the distinction Wilber makes between mythic thinking and
rational thinking is instructive here. (The mythic and rational are roughly
equal to Pirsig's social and intellectual levels.) Wilber describes them in
terms of HOW THEY HANDLE SYMBOLS because they handle them so differently.
They have different capabilities with respect to symbol manipulation. To
reflect that difference he describes mythic level consciousness as "concrete
operational" thinking and rational consciousness as "formal operational"
thinking. The concrete level is well named becasue is conjures up to social
embeddedness insisted upon by Witty and it reflects the literalistic
thinking of fundamentalists. The mythic mind can work with concrete symbols,
if you will, but not abstract symbols. The mythic mind has language and uses
language, but the vocabulary and conceptual categories are limited by their
connection to visceral life. By contrast, the rational or intellectual mind
is capable of preforming formal operations upon symbols such as words and
can manipulate them in ways that may or may not have anything to do with
life as it actually is. I've used CAPITOL letters where Wilber uses
italics....
"Cognitive psychologists and anthropologists tend to use RATIONALITY to mean
'formal operational cognition', which simply means the capacity not just to
think, but to think about thinking and thus 'operate upon' thinking. Since
you can operate upon or REFLECT UPON your own thought processes, you are to
some degree free of them; you can to some degree TRANSCEND them; you can
take PERSPECTIVES different from your own; you can entertain HYPOTHETICAL
possibilities; and you can become highly INTROSPECTIVE. ...all of these come
into existence with the emergence of formal operational cognition, or
'rationality'."
And so returning to the elected topic, I don't know if language is primarily
social in the MOQ. It would depend on what you mean by "primarily". But I'd
say that it begins on the social level, is originally social, but has
evolved right along with intellect. In fact, the intersubjective space that
defines a language and a society is just as necessary at the intellectual
level, the difference is only that the intellectual level is a larger, more
universal intersubjective space. Its language with a larger vocabularies -
no, its a multitude of languages with larger vocabularies.
Thanks
dmb
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