Language and Meaning
The Magical Flower of Winter is an essay series exploring reality and our relationship to it. It deals with philosophy, science and our views of the world, with an eye on the metacrisis and our future. Sign up to receive new essays here:
The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement[...] We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!
Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations §107
That means that language functions as language only by virtue of the rules we follow in using it. (Just as a game functions as a game only by virtue of its rules.) And this holds, as a matter of fact, regardless of whether I talk to myself or to others. For neither do I communicate anything to myself if I just associate groups of sounds with random facts on an ad hoc basis.
Ludwig Wittgenstein - The Big Typescript §45
The conception of language and reality as a pair of isomorphic structures linked, as it were, by the 'linguistic soul' was a kind of metaphysical mythology[…] A language, [Wittgenstein] now held, is an autonomous calculus of signs. Language is not connected with reality at all, since samples are themselves elements of representation[…] meaning and explanation remain, so to speak, within language[...] This does not mean, absurdly, that we do not refer to, talk about, items in the world when we say that the sun is shining or that it is raining, but only that grammar pays no homage to reality, that the 'logic of our language' is not answerable to the nature of the world.
P. M. S. Hacker - Insight and Illusion: Wittgenstein on Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Experience, p. 128-129
I wrapped up the previous piece by guiding our attention towards the slipperiness of our inquiry, to the question of how we can know where the boundary between the name and the thing named lies, to whether we can ever claim to see reality clearly. We are always immersed in reality, always in it, we always find ourselves in continuity with a remembered past, with our surroundings, with a stream of sense perceptions, and with a line of thought. Each of these contexts we are immersed in as individuals are themselves immersed in larger contexts made up by clusters of other people, which again are immersed in larger contexts of larger clusters, and up the hierarchical network we can keep going. These clusters are what make history and tradition, and thus the intellectual background from which each of us reach out from. For is this not a primary quality of our experience, this reaching out, this directedness that being is1? The old empiricist idea of our mind being a tabula rasa, a clean slate, on which experience acts, stands at odds with the conjunction of these primary experiential qualities of immersion and of reaching out. We have become familiar with the idea that with a little effort we can take an objective view of things in order to better judge them, but how can this be possible given our complete immersion and inseparability from context? And reality keeps unfolding, time keeps up its progress both through us and around us, so how can we have confidence that what we think of as an objective view stays objective in our interaction with the world? As a stepping stone towards the attempt to unravel these questions, we come now to the need of understanding meaning, of understanding the mechanisms and structures obeyed by our use of language. What do we mean by objective?
Analytic philosophy, long the dominant philosophical tradition in the Western world, has had much to say about meaning in its large focus on language as the key to understanding reality. The naive view of language is that words refer perfectly to objects and concepts, and that meaning is unambiguous within a language, that reference and meaning are absolute in some sense. The child sees a picture of a car and exclaims “Car!”. But is not the child embedded in a far-reaching context of learning and evaluation that provides the background against which this exclamation is “correct” or “true”? Quine (1960) showed how the naive view is faulty through the notion of indeterminacy of translation2. Indeterminacy of translation results from a thought experiment where two persons with different languages meet and see a rabbit leaping by. One of them says “gavagai” (a made-up word for purposes of the example). How can the other understand what is referred to and meant by “gavagai”? Is it the rabbit, a part of the rabbit, the rabbit leaping, or the rabbit leaping under certain conditions? Without a shared background language, Quine argues, reference will always be left dangling, we cannot be certain that we mean and understand the same thing by a word. Common sense should kick in now of course, we have obviously been able to translate distinct human languages, both dead and living. Can we not point or indicate what we mean in some other way? Can we not exchange more language in an attempt to constrain the possible meanings of “gavagai”? Even with a shared language, how can I be certain that what I mean by a word is understood by you? A Pandora's box of issues has now been opened that it will take some effort to close. Pointing, ostensive definition, or exchanging more language, will inevitably relativise the meaning of “gavagai” to the rest of the language, be it as words or as a system of gestures. But without a shared language, even this relativisation does not ensure perfect overlap of any translation. There might be words or clusters of words that find no correspondence in the other language without loss of meaning or extension3. And is it correct to think about my meaning of a word, as opposed to a mutual meaning? Would not talking about my meaning cause the same issues as the rabbit in that I now refer to a meaning-object4 which in some way is mine but which is equally underdetermined? The naive wish is for a theory of meaning that unambiguously and intelligibly refers to things in the world, but upon analysis we do not find this. In order to move forward we will have to look at the development of structuralism, conceptual relativity, anti-foundationalism and pragmatism.
How, on such an account, can we explain the apparent truth or approximate truth of empirical laws (e.g., Newton's Law of Gravity, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity) that require higher mathematics to state? Such a law, as standardly formalized, makes reference both to physical entities (forces, masses, particles, fields) and to functions and sets. If the functions and sets are just intentional objects, objects "in the story," then the physical theories are to that extent also about fictional (or at least intentional) objects, too. This view would seem to require a radical adjustment in philosophy of science as a whole, not just a new philosophy of mathematics. If mathematics is fiction, should the Mathematics Department be renamed "Creative Writing"? And what about the Physics Department? (Perhaps all there is is Creative Writing.)
Hilary Putnam & Paul Benacerraf - Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings
Quine’s exposition of the indeterminacy of translation, is part of his ontological relativity5: things are what they are only in relation to the web of things as a totality, and there can exist incompatible theories (webs) that nevertheless account for the same data. Putnam (1988) developed conceptual relativity as the similar view of objects as dependent on the conceptual scheme in which they are part. Across from the analytic philosophical tradition stands the continental tradition, to which Derrida belongs. Derrida (1982) developed de Saussere’s (1959) structuralism in his conception of différance. Structuralism and différance is a holistic formulation of meaning as constructed by both difference and deferral. The meaning of a word is what it is by its relation to all the other words (difference), and its meaning is changing by each use, because each use of a word provides a new context that the meaning stands against, and thus is defined by. This changing, temporal dimension of meaning is what is meant by deferral as part of différance, the mechanism by which meaning works is a process that defers to the future terminal of the usage of words, to your receiving the word in a context different from where it was sent. I will take these structural and relative qualities to be part of defining holism: things are what they are by relation to all else, thus the whole is primary, and the relation among parts of the whole, as well as the whole itself, is dynamic and contextual. This should be sufficiently vague so as to avoid landing on an axiomatic definition, which would stand in exact opposition to what holism is about: all “elements” (concepts, meanings, things…) are necessarily vague so as to be flexible and allow for plurality in use. Language, the epistemic, needs vagueness in order to work, in order for there to be an open space for meaning to be dynamic and contextual in.
Rorty (1980) argues for an anti-foundationalist and pragmatic philosophy, the belief that knowledge does not require independent foundations and that knowledge, meaning etc. cannot be understood independent of its use. He stated: «A thoroughgoing holism has no place for the notion of philosophy as "conceptual," as "apodictic," as picking out the "Foundations" of the rest of knowledge,[…] So holism produces[…] a conception of philosophy which has nothing to do with the quest for certainty.»6, and later on «[…]nothing counts as justification unless by reference to what we already accept, and that there is no way to get outside our beliefs and our language so as to find some test other than coherence.»7 This is yet another holistic quality: the justification of meaning can only occur against the web made up by the whole, and rather than certainty as an ideal of knowledge, it is rather coherence with the web, the conceptual scheme, we must place as the criteria for adequate understanding. We can now return to our original query: What we mean by objective, what we mean when we make objective claims, can only be by reference to the conceptual scheme, to the contextual background, in which we operate. There is no privileged absolute viewpoint independent of our conception. This is the structural, holistic and anti-foundationalist dimension of meaning8. Importantly, these dimensions and the view of language and meaning I have tried to illustrate here cannot be seen on its own, but must be seen together with the pragmatic, use-dependent dimension, as a whole. This I will pick up in a later piece on Wittgenstein. The holistic qualities of meaning and understanding should remind us of the primary experiential qualities of “reaching out” and immersion, hinting at some larger structure where these realms coincide. But, in the spirit of Wittgenstein, is this “larger structure” anything but a shadow, an illusion?
Let us take stock. The reason we can walk on shaky ground is because it is this instability that provides the flexibility for us to walk, it is the slipperiness that makes it possible for us to move around. Of course there is also friction, in every interaction there is resistance that provides guiding. The criterion of knowledge, of meaning and understanding, is coherence, not certainty. Being part of reality is being immersed in context, context that is historical, traditional, psychological, spatiotemporal and much more, contexts we cannot free ourselves from. But it is only in relation to these contexts, whether individual or shared, that our standards and norms for “truth”, “objectivity”, “agreement” or “certainty” get their meaning. And their meaning, as with all other terms, are dynamic and contextual. “Truth” has a very different meaning in logic and law, yet their meaning is usually clear from context. Only if we assume that there should be some absolute, independent foundation that provides the grounds for reality do we get into trouble (See the section on “Countering some counterarguments to relativism” below). In order to evaluate holism we cannot presuppose an independent absolute (“a real objectivity”), we must evaluate the holistic structure within and from a holistic structure. The question you might be asking yourself now is, isn’t this circular reasoning? If we have to presuppose something in order to evaluate that very same thing, are we not begging the question? I believe we here see the unintuitiveness of holism quite clearly, because the “circle” is unavoidable: we cannot free ourselves from context, but if we believe that circular reasoning must be avoided we nevertheless expect there to be certain claims or assumptions, that we make, that are free of context, exactly contrary to what we have found9.
I began this piece in part by asking where the boundary between the name and the thing named lies10. When discussing Quine’s indeterminacy of translation I brought up the question of whether talking about my meaning would cause the same issues as the rabbit, which is exactly a question of where the line goes between the pre-linguistic and linguistic. At what point does what we think of as conceptual thought become language? Can we conceive of a conceptual structure that isn’t linguistic, a structure that could provide for translation and meaning a common background in lieu of a shared language? These questions, and their resolution, provide a natural turn to Ludwig Wittgenstein and his private language argument, a thread I will pick up in a forthcoming article.
Countering some counterarguments to relativism
I want to briefly deal with the most common counterarguments to relativism, as laid out in Baghramian (2022). I believe these counterarguments have a common resolution in holism, so I will only go through three of them to illustrate how the resolution works. The first is also the most straightforward: the claim “Everything is relative” must itself be relative, so the claim is self-refuting. To say that it is self-refuting, we have to imagine some objective standard against which the claim is evaluated. Holism, however, holds that the standards against which we evaluate are themselves relative and normative. So to say that the claim is self-refuting, we haven’t moved away from the absolutist presupposition the claim itself is speaking against. Boghossian (2006) similarly believes we are led to an infinite regress by the claim that all truths are relative to a point of view, because this is itself relative to a point of view, and this regress is vicious. But this is again to hold to an objective truth against which we evaluate, a notion of truth which it is claimed does not exist, and so the regress collapses. The final counterargument (and counter) I will mention is due to Davidson (1974) who states that to believe in relativism is to believe in radically different languages that are untranslatable. On holism, there can be no radically untranslatable languages, because to evaluate them as such requires bringing them into contact, and this contact would not be possible if the languages were truly untranslatable. Some semblance of shared understanding, a shared context, across the languages is required in order to evaluate them as untranslatable, but the existence of this shared context negates using the term “untranslatable”11.
What I hope this brief attempt at resolution highlights is the unintuitiveness of the holistic view. All our talk and thought is suffused by and founded on the idea of independent entities, be it of objects, standards, concepts or ideas. But any framework that relies on this inaccessible other for its foundations invariably falls short of providing a coherent view. The resemblances we find between our experience and memory do not tell us of an independent world which we only glimpse the appearance of, but rather of the coherence of experience and our cognitive ability to recognise this coherence. Our understanding of the meaning of «real», as used in science, is different from what we in our experience deem to be real, which is highly contextual. «…real is what plays a central role in the kind of life we identify with[…] A first and rather immediate consequence is that the boundary between reality and appearance cannot be established by scientific research; it contains a normative or, if you will, an "existential" component.»12 A view of reality as a whole must be autonomous, self-grounding, capable of holding itself up, and most importantly, coherent with the way we experience, live, observe, theorize and act.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this or any of my other essays, consider subscribing, sharing, leaving a like or a comment. This support is an essential and motivating factor for the continuance of the project.
References
Baghramian, M. & Carter, J.A. (2022). Relativism in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/relativism/.
Boghossian, P. (2006). Fear of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Braver, L. (2014). Groundless Grounds: A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. MIT Press.
Davidson, D. (1974). On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme in (1984) Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Saussure, F. (1959) [1916]. Course in General Linguistics (Translated ed.). New York: New York Philosophical Library.
Derrida, J. (1982). Différance in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass. Chicago & London: Chicago University Press.
Eco, U. (2000). Kant and the platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition. Mariner.
Feyerabend, P. K. (1967). Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism. Critica 1 (2):103-106.
Feyerabend, P. K. (2001). Historical Comments on Realism. In B. Terpstra (Ed.), Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being. University of Chicago Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (2013). Truth and Method (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Bloomsbury Academic. (Original work published 1960).
Hacker, P. M. S. (1975). Insight and Illusion: Wittgenstein on Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Experience. Oxford University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time. Harper.
Kuhn, T. S. (2000). Commensurability, Comparability, Communicability. In J. Conant & J. Haugeland (Eds.), The Road Since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993, with an Autobiographical Interview. University of Chicago Press.
Putnam, H., & Benacerraf, P. (Eds.). (1983). Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings. Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, H. (1988). Representation and Reality. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press.
Quine, W. V. (1960). Word and Object. M.I.T. Press.
Quine, W. V. (1968). Ontological Relativity. The Journal of Philosophy, 65(7), 185–212. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024305
Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton University Press.
van Fraassen, B. C. (1980). The Scientific Image. Oxford University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical Investigations (G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Wiley.
Wittgenstein, L. (2005). The Big Typescript, TS. 213 (C. G. Luckhardt & M. E. Aue, Eds.; C. G. Luckhardt & M. E. Aue, Trans.). Wiley.
Eco (2000) calls this primary indexicality.
Kuhn (2000) does not view this as an issue of translation, but of learning a new language and interpretation. This does not matter at the present stage, the purpose of the example is to show forth the issues attached to language and meaning.
We are entering the territory of incommensurability, but for now we must turn around and delay this visit.
See Braver (2014).
Quine (1968).
Rorty (1980) p. 170.
Rorty (1980) p. 178.
What Braver (2014) calls groundless grounds. “The essential fact about our existence is that it cannot be rationally accounted for without remainder; our being thrown into existence is essentially groundless.” p. 232.
I take this to be an instantiation of the hermeneutic circle (See e.g. Heidegger (1962) and Gadamer (1960/2013)), that all understanding is an act of (contextual) interpretation and an understanding of a whole is by reference to the parts simultaneously as the parts are understood in terms of the whole. Contrary to constructive empiricism (van Fraassen (1980)), with which I am largely sympathetic, I believe we have to embrace the hermeneutic circle.
To at least Derrida, Wittgenstein, as well as semioticians, this would be the boundary between the sign and the signified.
I am, for now, viewing “radically untranslatable” as different from incommensurable, a topic we will have to revisit.
Feyerabend (2001) p. 201-202.