From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sat Jul 05 2003 - 19:00:29 BST
Hi DMB, Sam, all,
>> DBM quotes his "trusty Oxford Companion to Philsophy":
>>> "Contrary to the dominant tradition, Wittgenstein argued that language is
>>> misrepresented as a vehicle for the communication of language-independent
>>> thoughts. Speaking is not a matter of translating wordless thoughts into
>>> language, and understanding is not a matter of interpreting - transforming
>>> dead signs into living thoughts. The limits of thought are determined by the
>>> limits of the expression of thoughts. ... It is not thought that breathes
>>> life into the signs of a language, but the use of signs in the stream of
>>> human life."
>>
>> this would mean that the 4th level can access DQ only through the 3rd.
>
Sam said:
> Unless you redefine the nature of level 4.
Steve:
Again I would urge you to think about what is meant by "pattern of value"
and to distinguish when you are referring to a person's awareness being
dominated by particular types of patterns and when you are referring to
values and types of patterns of value themselves. The levels refer to types
of patterns not types of people. I can't see how it could mean anything to
say, "the 4th level can access DQ only through the 3rd" if you are talking
about patterns of value.
Also, I can't see how the quote above supports the case of language as a
social pattern of value. If you throw away the idea of social level
thinking v intellectual level thinking and and instead merely think about
thinking as participating in a pattern of value I think you'll agree. To
me the quote says that using language is equated with thinking and is then
by Pirsig's definition intellectual not social. "Speaking is not a matter
of translating wordless thoughts into language," since according to
Wittgenstein, there are no worldless thoughts. Pirsig seems to agree if you
take words as the symbols that stand for patterns of experience that Pirsig
was talking about when he defined thinking. You seem to agree that there is
no thought without language but don't see that there is no language without
thought which must be the case if thinking and manipulating words in the
mind are the same thing.
> Sam said:
> my view, derived from my Wittgenstein studies, is that language is social,
> not either intellectual or even 'thinking'.
>
> dmb says:
> Exactly. I couldn't agree with you more.
Steve:
There is a social aspect of language in that words and grammatical
structures are acquired through unconscious copying, but to use language or
to understand language is to think and to think is to manipulate words
mentally.
I think it helps to think of classifying "using language" instead of just
"language." Its hard to see what you could mean by "language" as a pattern
of value. Progressive participles seem to be a better match for the
categorizible patterns of the MOQ than are nouns. Classifying nouns is a
form of classifying "objects" rather than values and is SOMish to me.
Thanks,
Steve
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