tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post4527688562166965016..comments2024-01-14T01:51:23.999-05:00Comments on DuckRabbit: Can words be used incorrectly?Duckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-80989397674578825522010-02-11T20:28:39.267-05:002010-02-11T20:28:39.267-05:00Whoo, my lynx is ocelating.
pWhoo, my lynx is ocelating.<br />pPeter Greenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17806372860467057912noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-46012487304259371422009-09-04T15:59:59.560-04:002009-09-04T15:59:59.560-04:00It's *not* a problem unless you have a problem...<em>It's *not* a problem unless you have a problematic conception of the relation between language and the world. But then it *is* a problem, and it's helpful to see why, even if you yourself are safe.</em><br /><br />Well, I was being a bit facetious; I do see why some people find it problematic, but from my point of view that's just a symptom of other problems that they have. (Though I wouldn't have put it the way you did, so perhaps you've got something else than I do in mind.)<br /><br />I'd be interested in knowing what, if anything, you think does underlie the sorts of examples people use when talking about meaning—not just the fact that people don't use hotly-contested pairs like dis/uninterested, but that it's so often boring ol' nouns, or integral sentences. There are so many other things! Why not the mood of verbs, or demonstratives?Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-39247060091154939192009-09-02T16:04:18.011-04:002009-09-02T16:04:18.011-04:00Right. I meant "if and only if the ocelot...&...Right. I meant "if and only if the ocelot..." above. I erroneously typed something which you would reasonably take to mean "if and only if the lynx...", which was mea culpa.<br /><br />But, I reasonably believed that you could grasp my intention to say something which was true if and only if <i>Zooduck's intention to say something which was true if and only if the ocelot which they got in that day had interesting markings went off without a hitch</i>, which is what separates me from Humpty Dumpty. HD perfectly well knew there was no way Alice could grasp his meaning, and yet was supposed to have said something to her with that meaning. HD intended to use means he knew would fail, which isn't rational. (Presumably, he's not supposed to unconsciously believe that Alice could grasp his meaning, or anything like that; he's just supposed to be a nonsense-character. What he says about his own meaning-intentions just can't be right.)<br /><br />That's how I meant the variables to be read, yes. "P" is "ocelot" (or the sentence containing "ocelot"), /P/ is "/oselot/" (or the string of sounds containing the phonemes "/oselot/"), "Q" is "lynx" (or the relevant sentence), "/Q/" is "/links/" (or the relevant string of sounds).<br /><br />I would note that I think we can intelligibly say that Zooduck made an error apart from the prudential one you mention, though. Zooduck presumably does want to go on speaking in a regular fashion, and to speak as those around him in the zoo staff do. (These are wants that most normal people who work at a zoo would have.) So even if he knew that /links/ and /oselot/ would both be as easily understood, he would want to say /oselot/ and not /links/. One of the things he was doing in speaking was conducting himself in a way he liked (for, I'll suppose, aesthetic reasons), and he failed at that in this instance. This isn't really a matter of prudence, or of speaking in a way which will be most easily understood; it's another layer at which (non-semantic) normative concerns can come up. I think this is a point Bilgrami doesn't mention.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-9836351361879481902009-09-02T14:32:11.386-04:002009-09-02T14:32:11.386-04:00Daniel:
"Zooduck's intention to say som...Daniel: <br /><br />"Zooduck's intention to say something which was true if and only if the lynx which they got in that day had interesting markings went off without a hitch: That is what he meant. No error in meaning."<br /><br />"The error isn't in meaning; it's just in making the wrong noise. (Zooduck intended to say something that meant P by making the sound /P/; instead he said something that meant P by making the sound /Q/. So one thing he was doing went fine; one thing he was doing went awry.) "<br /><br />Okay, now I'm really confused. Do *you* mean "ocelot" instead of "lynx" in that first part? I'll explain why I ask, and maybe that will help if I am mistaken.<br /><br />Let's substitute in for our variables. The sound ZD actually made was /links/. So that's /Q/. /P/ must then be (pardon my nonstandard phonetics) /oselot/. But now what's P? That the cat was an ocelot, right? That's what I correctly believe (or at least have done so all morning), and I intended to communicate that belief in the standard way.<br /><br />If this is right, your Bilgramian claim is that /links/ in my mouth at that moment meant "ocelot", because that's what I intended to mean by it. My mistake was simply that I chose the "wrong" sound to carry my meaning, where the "wrongness" is precisely not semantic, but instead prudential: you didn't take my meaning right away, but instead checked to see if I might not have made a doxastic mistake instead (again, as opposed to the prudential slip I did make, where no properly semantic mistake is even conceptually possible).<br /><br />I'll continue on this assumption – that *you* committed an infelicity – but let me stop here for now. (I'm surprised to hear about a character limit on comments btw).<br /><br />Of course this makes Bilgrami (and Davidson) sound like Humpty Dumpty. Why don't I post the relevant excerpt from "Nice Derangement," and say more about your second comment there.Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-63442992838096789312009-09-02T11:40:37.310-04:002009-09-02T11:40:37.310-04:00Hi Abbas - I've sent it to you but I can put i...Hi Abbas - I've sent it to you but I can put it here too. My hotmail account is: duck1887 at hotmail dot com.Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-5676314303773859972009-09-02T10:16:34.508-04:002009-09-02T10:16:34.508-04:00Why aren't we forced to talk this way?
Take t...Why aren't we forced to talk this way?<br /><br />Take the first example. Assume that you mean by 'lynx' and 'ocelot' what a cat expert means, that the animal you've admitted is indeed an ocelot, and that you've made a thorough examination of it. You then mention that the lynx you admitted today had some interesting markings. Ceteris paribus (e.g., you're not drunk and you havn't hit your head), can your use of 'lynx' be anything other than a mispeaking?N. N.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05983492370711591794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-3803605575572883562009-09-02T07:56:38.824-04:002009-09-02T07:56:38.824-04:00Dave, please email me at s.abbas.raza [at] att.net...Dave, please email me at s.abbas.raza [at] att.net<br /><br />I have lost your email address.<br /><br />Thanks.<br /><br />AbbasAbbas Razanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-89250170351654202602009-09-01T22:30:27.084-04:002009-09-01T22:30:27.084-04:00Thanks guys, that's very helpful. Let me say ...Thanks guys, that's very helpful. Let me say a few things now, and then I have to think about it some more (and maybe read "Norms and Meaning" again).<br /><br />Ben, those are some interesting cases. Philosophical talk about meaning tends not to use examples like "disinterested"/"uninterested", but it's at least worth wondering why not, as the general public is indeed more likely to think of this as a case of "using words wrongly," where calling a lynx an ocelot is more likely to strike them as a simple falsehood (you're wrong, that's not an ocelot). You're right that spelling is similar to this case in that way, but of course that doesn't have anything to do with *meaning*, so we might as well use these examples instead.<br /><br />As for the sorites, this started out as a post on that (sparked by Language Log), so we'll be getting back to that. In a way, it's actually healthy to think of the sorites as not problematic. It's *not* a problem unless you have a problematic conception of the relation between language and the world. But then it *is* a problem, and it's helpful to see why, even if you yourself are safe. (Like with skepticism.)<br /><br />Oh, and what Daniel said there at the end about Davidson and schoolmarmishness. I love Language Log about this issue by the way: always serious, but deadly snark when called for.Duckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11349267352262603510noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-3979364787802850832009-09-01T21:03:26.707-04:002009-09-01T21:03:26.707-04:00Sure sure.Sure sure.Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-80446641775076252632009-09-01T17:37:31.501-04:002009-09-01T17:37:31.501-04:00Spelling is one of Davidson's examples. He not...Spelling is one of Davidson's examples. He notes that he's a terrible speller, but he is (in 1991) too old to realistically improve. So he misspells words on the blackboard constantly, to the amusement of his students. He says he'd improve if he could, but he's resigned himself to the fact that he's a poor speller.<br /><br />I think the "disinterested as uninterested" example is a pretty straightforward instance of the "external, prudential" norms. The <i>Idiolect of A</i> (assuming it's written in good Wolfson-approved English) would say that A's "disinterested" means "uninterested", at least some of the time.<br /><br />It's like using a teaspoon to eat your soup. You can tell a story about why the soup spoon is the right spoon, and the teaspoon is the wrong one, but either spoon will work, in an unproblematic sense. ("See, it's big enough that you can get a scoop of soup, to start cooling, and then you can sip from the spoon. It's harder to sip at a good pace from a teaspoon, since it doesn't hold as much. The soup cools faster and you have to down the rest of the spoonful." -- or something like that; I am not committed to any particular story about why we use what spoons, but I'm sure there's some such story to be told. I never enjoy my soup as much with a teaspoon.) This is analogous to the disinterested/uninterested case: If you use the words as Ben Wolfson (and I) would prefer, then you can tell a nice story about how the word's meaning can be seen from its roots, you can trace its etymology and have it match up with current usage nicely, you sound like a Man Who Knows How To Speak, etc. But there's really no huge problem with understanding the schmucks who use the words wrong. It just irks.<br /><br />(Davidson had a pet peeve about "the data shows..." and a few other words, like "octopi". He just doesn't think these peccadillos are much important for what needs to happen if people are to understand one another and make themselves understood.)<br /><br />I think you're right that The People usually mean the schoolmarmish thing when they talk of "using words wrong". It's what drives newspaper editorials and the like whining about how English is being sacrificed to barbarism, that sort of thing. And I don't think anyone (certainly not Davidson) is opposed to the idea that speaking <i>well</i> might demand adhering more closely to some such schoolmarmy norms (though what those norms are, it would be stressed, is not given from Heaven or forced on us by anything inhuman). It's just that philosophers have often thought that there was something more to semantic normativity than this sort of thing.Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-16017956694260579092009-09-01T13:40:57.132-04:002009-09-01T13:40:57.132-04:00It occurred to me on the train that this question ...It occurred to me on the train that this question is a lot like "can words be spelled incorrectly?".Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-6081260656442776022009-09-01T05:02:12.768-04:002009-09-01T05:02:12.768-04:00It's late and I only skimmed the posts & c...It's late and I only skimmed the posts & comments.<br /><br />(a) Having read Marinus' first comment, I admit that I still can't get myself to find the sorites paradox actually problematic, but I've come to accept that this is somewhat eccentric on my part.<br /><br />(b) This won't I suppose contribute anything beyond what Daniel's comments do, and better, but I was struck by the fact that none of the examples in the post correspond to what I would consider the paradigm case of "using a word incorrectly", in which the person does <em>not</em> correct himself. A dialogue of this sort that began:<br /><br />A: The students seemed unusually disinterested today.<br />B: You mean "uninterested".<br /><br />would not continue:<br /><br />A: Oh, you're right. Slip of the tongue/I always make that mistake.<br /><br />(If it really is a slip of the tongue I have a hard time thinking of it as an instance of using the word "disinterested" incorrectly, any more than I would think it a case of using the word "capture" incorrectly if, while transcribing something else, I type "capture" because I'm also overhearing a conversation in which it is used frequently; if it's a case where "I always make that mistake" that seems different.) But:<br /><br />A: Huh?<br />B: "disinterested" means that someone doesn't <em>have an</em> interest—a stake—in the proceedings; "uninterested" means that someone doesn't <em>take any</em> interest in them.<br />A: Maybe in your day, gramps.<br /><br />If <em>I</em> were to draw up an <em>Idiolect of A</em>, I would put under "disinterested" "sometimes means 'uninterested'". The snotty instinct that leads me to add insert "wrongly" is optional, and pooh-poohed by the knowing ones, but it is, I think, what The People mostly mean by a word's being used incorrectly.Ben Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06887096661154495898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-78265999121275399762009-09-01T01:30:39.061-04:002009-09-01T01:30:39.061-04:00Three comments and I forgot to click the box all t...Three comments and I forgot to click the box all three times.<br /><br />The first ocelot picture looks pretty sweet when this post is shared on Facebook. (You should get on Facebook, there are sometimes philosophy discussions there. It has sucked up at least some of my blogging drive.)Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-81555317957120043042009-09-01T01:24:13.311-04:002009-09-01T01:24:13.311-04:00Oh, and I forgot to repeat what I'd said in NY...Oh, and I forgot to repeat what I'd said in NYC: I think Bilgrami just goes too far in saying that normativity is irrelevant to meaning. Intentions are not irrelevant to meaning (they're determinative of it), and you can't have the relevant intentions in the picture without lots of other actions in the surroundings (assertings, believings, and the like at a bare minimum), all of which <b>are</b> normative in a pretty plain sense. What Bilgrami wants is just to say that "You can't <i>mean</i> the wrong thing, as distinct from <i>saying</i> the wrong thing or <i>believing</i> the wrong thing etc.; there's no special place to go wrong in <i>meaning</i>." But you can't mean anything without saying, believing, etc., and so normativity can't drop out of the picture if what you want to talk about is how someone can mean something by what they say. At least, if you want to have an account of it that's at all helpful. ("You mean what you intend to mean" just sounds like Humpty-Dumpty's view; the surrounding stuff in Davidson is important for making it able to hear this the right way.)Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-5668250885406734322009-09-01T01:16:15.239-04:002009-09-01T01:16:15.239-04:00The sound Zooduck made would have usually, in his ...The sound Zooduck made would have usually, in his mouth, meant "lynx". If someone were to make a dictionary of "The Idiolect Of Zooduck" (which would be mostly like an English dictionary), there would be no need to have an entry under "Lynx" that says "Sometimes means 'ocelot'". The (extrinsic, pragmatic, prudential) norm to which Zooduck holds himself is that he shouldn't use "Lynx" to mean "Ocelot" without some special reason to speak oddly. This norm is perfectly intelligible and real.<br /><br />It's also entirely irrelevant to meaning, unlike what the social externalism of Burge and Kripkenstein (etc.) claims. Failing to adhere to these norms, or changing them out for other norms, causes no failures to mean what one intends to mean. It just makes it harder (usually) for one's interlocutors to understand one, and makes it seem like you're only semiliterate, uncultured, etc.<br /><br />There are also situations where we <b>do</b> treat utterances/inscriptions as meaning something other than what was intended: Davidson gives the example of the terms of a bet with someone you don't like. If the terms are what they thought they agreed to, then they didn't lose the bet; if the terms are what the social externalist account says they are (what Webster's Unabridged and the Cambridge Grammar say of them etc.) then they lose the bet. So we lean on conventions and insist on payment: they didn't know what their wager was for, but so what? -- sucks to them. Davidson also mentions signing contracts you don't understand: Sometimes the law holds you responsible to the terms as the law understands them (but not always -- it's a complicated region of law).<br /><br />I think Gadamer's brief discussion of "statements" (as in "The suspect has signed a statement") at "Truth and Method" p. 469 points in the same direction, I think: Part of what's compelling about the picture of language that Davidson/Bilgrami reject is that it <i>really does</i> capture something real: It's what things "mean" in these narrow circumstances. I've lately come to think that it's (at least polemically) worth stressing this point: Davidson isn't denying that we can (and sometimes do) hold someone to the measure of Webster's; what he denies is that we must do this, or that when we do this we capture all there is to what was meant.<br /><br />(I hit a character limit, is why there's two comments (they were composed as one) -- 4,096 is the most you can have. I guess I had more than that.)Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10666901.post-47557473581933624602009-09-01T01:15:22.740-04:002009-09-01T01:15:22.740-04:00Hooray, duck post.
I'm still not sure that Da...Hooray, duck post.<br /><br />I'm still not sure that Davidson/Bilgrami don't concede enough to cover your point: the "extrinsic 'prudential norm' of speaking as others do" does not strike me as different <i>in kind</i> from the norm of "speaking as I generally do" or "as I want to do" -- which is what goes wrong when my tongue slips. (There are such norms; I correct myself if I make sounds I don't like or if I dislike my orthography, even if the sense is clear either way. Language would be very different if there were no such norms. But, I can't see that language would cease to be meaningful without them, which is why Davidson/Bilgrami are right to deny that these norms have anything to do with meaning.)<br /><br />Bilgrami's point about the "degenerate" nature of meaning-intentions is that to intend an utterance or inscription to have certain truth-conditions just <i>is</i> for it to have those truth-conditions: there's no gap between intending to do the thing and having done it. There's no room for normativity because there's no room for failure (and so neither for success).<br /><br />I found myself puzzled by these things again while reading your post; rewriting your first example a little helped convince me that Bilgrami is right:<br /><br />Zooduck: "The lynx we got today had some interesting markings."<br />Zoorabbit: "Lynx? You mean ocelot, don't you?"<br />Zooduck: "Right, that's what I meant. Slip of the tongue."<br /><br />Zooduck's intention to say something which was true if and only if the lynx which they got in that day had interesting markings went off without a hitch: That is what he meant. No error in <i>meaning</i>. And as in your first example, I don't feel any urge to say that there's been an error in belief. (Zooduck knew that the interesting markings were on an ocelot, and that Zoorabbit would normally take "lynx" in Zooduck's mouth to mean lynxes (not ocelots), etc.)<br /><br />But we do seem to have some sort of error in the mix: Zoorabbit corrects <b>something</b> about Zooduck's utterance, and Zooduck concedes that Zoorabbit was correct in doing so. I think this sort of error is just: Zooduck didn't <i>speak</i> as he intended to. He made a different sound instead. The error isn't in meaning; it's just in making the wrong noise. (Zooduck intended to say something that meant P by making the sound /P/; instead he said something that meant P by making the sound /Q/. So one thing he was doing went fine; one thing he was doing went awry.)Daniel Lindquisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05443116324301716578noreply@blogger.com