From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 21:50:20 GMT
Sam, Patrick,
Matt:
Pragmatists think its just best to treat these things [pianos, trees,
geometry] as sentences that we can apply truth or falsity to, rather than
experiences that we can apply truth or falsity to.
Patrick:
That's among the best oneliners I heard recently. Sounds very Wittgensteinian.
Sam:
Just a quickie on this: it does sound Wittgensteinian, but I'm pretty sure
that Wittgenstein wouldn't agree with Matt that there is nothing outside
language. In fact I'm certain of it; it's something he would violently
object to!
Matt:
Now, I have to acquiece to you on Wittegenstein, but I do want to clarify:
I don't want to say that there is or isn't anything outside of language.
The pragmatist, Sellers-Foucault hybrid "position" is that we don't want to
answer the question of whether there's anything outside of language. We're
satisfied with simply dealing with language. For instance, saying that
there is nothing outside of language makes it seem as if the tree doesn't
exist outside of language. When I punch a tree, I'm saying that I'm
punching the word "tree." But I do want to say that our knowledge of trees
and all of our sentences of trees and thoughts about trees are not pinned
on a "tree." They are internally coherent. They refer to each other. We
can make empirical observations, but these observations are in language.
Our observations can be _caused_ by an empirical world without them
refering to a reality "out there."
Matt
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