Marx, Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language

[ChrisK]

It has come to my attention that there are users on this board who seem to have trouble understanding what is meant when users such as myself use the phrase ordinary language. Now I find this to be most unfortunate as Marx used this phrase in the same way that I, or Wittgenstein would use it.



The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.
http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03p.htm

What my intent here is to explain in as clear a way as possible what we mean by ordinary language and how it is differnet from other languages. From there I will give an outline of how philosophers misuse ordinary language.

I would love it if others with a stronger basis in this subject than myself would correct any mistakes that I make and contribute knowledge of their own.

The Three Types of Language


Language can be roughly divided into three main types of language: Ordinary, Specialized and Philosophical. Each one serves a different function and is created in a different way.

Ordinary language is language as is developed through ordinary social interaction. It is how humans speak to one another in everyday settings such as in the workplace. Hence, why we call it the language of the working class. It is used by the working class on a daily basis. Its roots can be found in developing due to the introduction of collective labor in humankind. It is through social interaction that both production and language came about.
Production by an isolated individual outside society – a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness – is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm
Specialized Language is language that is developed to speak about subjects that have yet to be spoken about. Scientists use specialized languages everyday when they talk about specific concepts that we do not have terms for yet. Marx engaged in this when he developed terms of use-value and exchange-value for Das Kapital. He devised new words to convey a concept that was not used until capitalist modes of production came about.
Philosophical language is the distortion of ordinary language to create philosophical problems to deal with. For example, Socrates treated the adjective "good" as the noun "the good." This allowed him ask questions about what the form of the good is. In reality we know that good has no form as adjectives are not existential objects. These words as used by philosophers have no meaning. Relgious language is of the same variety in its questions of the nature of "God" a word without meaning.
Using Ordinary Language to deal with Philosophical problems

By distorting ordinary language, philosophers have created a series of problems that they deem need to be solved. The way in which they distort language is by first claiming that words obtain their meaning, not through human interaction, but by being names that correspond to something real in the world. (Edit: As Rosa noted this is unclear. I left out that if there is not something in the real world they correspond to, then they are called various things such as absractions and forms. These are treated as the basic elements of the ideal world that they create that are accessible to thought alone) Now if this is the case, then all words are the name of the thing they correspond with; they all function as nouns. Thus, you get questions of our Being, the good, reality, etc. None of these words make any sense in ordinary language, since they are used as nouns when they are in reality verbs or adjectives. Now last time I checked, verbs and adjectives were not objects, but actions and descriptions. Thus, they are being used out of their ordinary sense.

An argument about why all words are not names can be provided upon request. (Edit: Rosa provided the basic argument for why words are not all names)

What this sets up is a way for all philosophical problems to be solved. We must do as both Marx and Wittgenstein call for and disolve this philosophical language into ordinary language. In ordinary language these problems do not exist as the problems are meaningless.

Marxism and Ordinary and Specialized Language

Marxists too use ordinary language on a daily basis. We use this to communicate most of our ideas to the working class in speech and in our various publications. We also use a specialized language when we speak of Marxian economic concepts. As I mentioned before in terms of use and exchange-value. Both of these forms of language are valid in that they convey meaning to others. If we use philosophical language, we are conveying meaningless statements that do nothing to further the causes of the working class.

I hope this cleared up some issues as to what ordinary language is and why we stand in strong opposition to philosophy and the use of philosophical terms in Marxian dialogue.

Further reading:
The German Ideology (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/index.htm) especially Chapter 3, subsection Apologetical Commentary.

An overview of Wittgenstein's Logic of Language (http://roangelo.net/logwitt/)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^That's a good start Chris, but you might want to modify this:


By distorting ordinary language, philosophers have created a series of problems that they deem need to be solved. The way in which they distort language is by first claiming that words obtain their meaning, not through human interaction, but by corresponding to something real in the world. Now if this is the case, then all words are the name of the thing they correspond with; they all function as nouns. Thus, you get questions of our Being, the good, reality, etc. None of these words make any sense in ordinary language, since they are used as nouns when they are in reality verbs or adjectives. Now last time I checked, verbs and adjectives were not objects, but actions and descriptions. Thus, they are being used out of their ordinary sense.

I think you mean that they turn all words into names, and if these 'names' do not name anything in nature, they tell us they refer to 'abstractions', 'Ideas', 'Concepts', 'Universals', 'Forms' or 'Categories'. These constitute the real substance of the world, hence they are more real than the world we see around us, and are accessible to thought alone.

A cloud of metaphysics distilled from a series of verbal tricks! [To paraphrase Wittgenstein.]

This unfortunately turns all sentences into lists, and lists do not actually say anything (unless they are articulated with words that do not function as names).

Here's what Prof E J Lowe had to say about this (as you know, I have posted this before):


"What is the problem of predication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(grammar))? In a nutshell, it is this. Consider any simple subject-predicate sentence, such as..., 'Theaetetus sits'. How are we to understand the different roles of the subject and the predicate in this sentence, 'Theaetetus' and 'sits' respectively? The role of 'Theaetetus' seems straightforward enough: it serves to name, and thereby to refer to or stand for, a certain particular human being. But what about 'sits'? Many philosophers have been tempted to say that this also refers to or stands for something, namely, a property or universal that Theaetetus possesses or exemplifies: the property of sitting. This is said to be a universal, rather than a particular, because it can be possessed by many different individuals.

"But now we have a problem, for this view of the matter seems to turn the sentence 'Theaetetus sits' into a mere list of (two) names, each naming something different, one a particular and one a universal: 'Theaetetus, sits.' But a list of names is not a sentence because it is not the sort of thing that can be said to be true or false, in the way that 'Theaetetus sits' clearly can. The temptation now is to say that reference to something else must be involved in addition to Theaetetus and the property of sitting, namely, the relation of possessing that Theaetetus has to that property. But it should be evident that this way of proceeding will simply generate the same problem, for now we have just turned the original sentence into a list of three names, 'Theaetetus, possessing, sits.'

"Indeed, we are now setting out on a vicious infinite regress, which is commonly known as 'Bradley's regress', in recognition of its modern discoverer, the British idealist philosopher F. H. Bradley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._H._Bradley). Bradley used the regress to argue in favour of absolute idealism...." [Lowe (2006). Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at my site.]

Hence, the propositions of traditional philosophy, and that includes the theses found in dialectical materialism, collapse into non-sense, since no sense can be made of a set of lists.

More details here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

[turquino]

I don’t see why philosophical language should be treated differently than specialized language. It’s as meaningful for philosophers to use ‘the Being’ as it is for physicists to use ‘the spin’ when describing particles. Both are removed from their usage in ordinary language, but that doesn’t make them meaningless to philosophers or scientists when they use them inside their respective traditions.

[ChrisK]

I don’t see why philosophical language should be treated differently than specialized language. It’s as meaningful for philosophers to use ‘the Being’ as it is for physicists to use ‘the spin’ when describing particles. Both are removed from their usage in ordinary language, but that doesn’t make them meaningless to philosophers or scientists when they use them inside their respective traditions.

Difference. Its not "the spin" its "spin." Physicists are not treating spin as a noun, it is still a verb.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

turquino:


I don’t see why philosophical language should be treated differently than specialized language. It’s as meaningful for philosophers to use ‘the Being’ as it is for physicists to use ‘the spin’ when describing particles. Both are removed from their usage in ordinary language, but that doesn’t make them meaningless to philosophers or scientists when they use them inside their respective traditions.

Even if the use of such nouns is acceptable, as sometimes it is, the difference here is that physicists have to interface with the material world to test their theories. Philosophers can't.

Why they can't I have explained in an earlier thread, but here it is again (re-written to make it clearer):


Consider a typical philosophical/metaphysical thesis:

M1: To be is to be perceived.

Contrast this with a typical empirical proposition:

M2: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

The seemingly profound nature of theses like M1 is linked to rather more mundane features of the language in which they are expressed: that is, to the fact that the main verb they use is almost invariably in the indicative (http://www.lousywriter.com/verbs_indicative_mood.php) mood.

[Sometimes, the latter is beefed-up with subjunctive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood) and/or modal qualifying terms (such as 'must', 'necessary', etc.) -- which, incidentally, helps create even more of a false impression.]

Now, this apparently superficial grammatical facade hides a deeper logical form -- several in fact. This is something which only becomes plain when such sentences are examined more closely.

As noted above, expressions like these look as if they reveal deep truths about reality since they certainly resemble empirical propositions (i.e., propositions about matters of fact). In the event, they turn out to be nothing at all like them.

To see this, consider again an ordinary empirical proposition:

T1: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

Compare this with these similar-looking indicative (but nonetheless typical metaphysical) sentences:

T2: Time is a relation between events.

T3: Motion is inseparable from matter.

In order to understand T1, it is not necessary to know whether it is true or not.

However, the comprehension of T2 and T3 goes hand-in-hand with knowing either or both are true (or, conversely, knowing either or both are false). The truth of T2 and T3 thus follows from the meaning of certain words (or from certain definitions -- i.e., from yet more words).

no evidence is needed.]

This now intimately links the truth status of T2 and T3 with meaning, but not with material confirmation/facts, and hence not with a confrontation with reality. Their truth-status is independent of and anterior to the evidence (even if there were any!).

In contrast, understanding T1 is independent of its confirmation or refutation -- indeed, it would be impossible to do either if T1 had not already been understood. However, the truth/falsehood of T1-type propositions follows from the way the world is, not solely from meaning.

Empirical propositions are typically like this; they have to be understood first before they can be confronted with the evidence that would establish their truth-status. In contrast, metaphysical propositions carry their truth/falsehood on their faces, as it were, and need no evidence to confirm their truth or their falsehood.

So here we have two sorts of indicative sentences, each with a radically different 'relation' to 'reality'.

Understanding the first sort (i.e., those like T1) is independent of their truth-status, whereas their actual truth or falsehood depends on the state of the world.

In the second (i.e., those like T2 or T3), their truth or falsehood is not dependent on the state of the world, but follows solely from the meaning of the words they contain (or on those in the argument from which they were 'derived'). To understand them is ipso facto to know they are true.

Indeed, metaphysical theses (like T2 and T3) are deliberately constructed to transcend the limitations of the material world, which tactic is excused on the grounds that it allows the aspiring metaphysician to uncover "underlying essences", revealing nature's "hidden secrets". Theses like these are "necessarily true" (or "necessarily false"), and are thus held to express genuine knowledge of fundamental aspects of reality, unlike contingent/empirical propositions whose actual truth-status can alter with the wind.

Traditionally, this meant that empirical propositions like T1 were considered to be incapable of revealing authentic knowledge. Indeed, "philosophical knowledge" (underlying absolute certainty) has always been held to be of the sort delivered by T2- or T3-type sentences: necessary, a priori, non-contingent, and generated by thought alone.

Metaphysical propositions thus masquerade as especially profound super-empirical truths which cannot fail to be true (or cannot fail to be false, as the case may be). They do this by aping the indicative mood --, but they go way beyond this. Thus, what they say does not just happen to be this way or that, as is the case with ordinary empirical truths -- these propositions cannot be otherwise. The world must conform to whatever they say. Indeed, this accounts for the use of modal terms (like "must", "necessary" and "inconceivable") if and when their status is questioned --, or, of course, whenever their content is being sold to us -- as in "I must exist if I can think", or "Existence can't be a predicate".

Conversely, if anyone were to question the truth of T1, the following response: "Tony Blair must own a copy of Das Kapital" would be highly inappropriate -- unless, perhaps, T1 itself were the conclusion of an inference, such as: "Tony Blair told me he owned a copy, so he must own one", or it was based on a direct observation statement. But even then, the truth or falsehood of T1 would depend on an interface with material reality at some point.

In the latter case, with empirical propositions, reality dictates to us whether what we say is true or false. We would not be dictating to reality what it must contain, or what it must be like, as metaphysical theses have always done.

Hence, with respect to T2 and T3, things are radically different; the second option above applies, for their truth-values (true or false) can be determined independently, and in advance of the way the world happens to be. Here, the 'essential' nature of reality can be ascertained from words/thought alone. Such Super-Truths (or Super-Falsehoods) can be derived solely from the alleged meaning of the words sentences like T2 and T3 contain (or from the 'concepts' they somehow express). In that case, once understood, metaphysical propositions like T2 and T3 guarantee their own truth or their own falsehood. They are thus true a priori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori).

So, to understand a metaphysical thesis is to know it is true or to know it is false. That is why, to their inventors, metaphysical propositions appear to be so certain and self-evident. Questioning them seems to run against the grain of our understanding, not of our experience. Indeed, they appear to be self-evident precisely because they need no evidence to confirm their truth-status; they provide their own 'evidence', and testify on their own behalf. Their veracity follows from the alleged meaning of the words they contain. They, not the world, guarantee their own truth (or falsehood).

Unfortunately, this divorces such theses from material reality, since they are true or false independently of any apparent state of the world.

In that case, any thesis that can be judged true or false on conceptual grounds alone cannot feature in a materialist account of reality, only an Idealist one.

This might seem to be a somewhat dogmatic statement to make, but as we shall see, the opposite view is the one that is dogmatic, since it is based on a ruling-class view of reality (and on one whose validity is not sensitive to empirical test), which collapses into incoherence when examined closely.

The paradoxical nature of metaphysical theses illustrates the ineluctable slide into non-sense that all philosophical theories undergo whenever their proponents try to undermine either the vernacular or the logical and pragmatic principles on which it is based -- those which, for example, ordinary speakers regularly use to state contingent truths or falsehoods about the world without such a fuss.

Intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such putatively empirical, but nonetheless metaphysical, sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical proposition is declared to be only true or only false (or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other) -- as a "law of cognition", perhaps -- or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical thesis.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both semantic options, and with that goes any sense that the original proposition might have had, rendering it incomprehensible.

This is because empirical propositions leave it open as to whether they are true or false; that is why their truth-values (true/false) cannot simply be read-off from their content, why evidence is required in order to determine their semantic status, and why it is possible to understand them before their truth or falsehood is known. If that were not so, it would be impossible to ascertain their truth-status; it is not possible to verify/falsify an alleged proposition if no one understands it.

When this is not the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, or when propositions are said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant. Thus, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition cannot be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or semantic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such linguistic/structural factors, that proposition cannot be empirical.

If, however, such propositions are still regarded by those who propose them as truths, or Super-truths, about the world, about its "essence", then they are plainly metaphysical.

Otherwise the truth or falsehood of such propositions would be world-sensitive, not solely meaning- or concept-dependent. And that explains why the comprehension of metaphysical propositions appears to go hand in hand with knowing their 'truth' (or their 'falsehood'): they are based on features of thought/language, not on the material world.

This means that they can't be related to the material world or anything in it, and hence they can't be used to help change it.

Of course, it could always be claimed that such 'essentialist' thoughts 'reflect' the world.

But, if thought 'reflects' the world, it would be possible to understand a proposition that allegedly expressed such a reflected thesis in advance of knowing whether it was true or false, otherwise confirmation in practice, or by comparing it with the world, would become an empty gesture. But this is not so with such philosophical, 'reflected' theses.

On the other hand, if their truth or their falsehood can be ascertained from such propositions/'thoughts' alone (i.e., if they are "self-evident"), then plainly the world drops out of the picture.

Naturally, this just means that such 'thoughts'/propositions cannot be reflections of the world, whatever else they are.

Another odd feature of metaphysical theses is also worth underlining: since the truth-values of defective sentences like these are plainly not determined by the world, they have to be given a truth-value by fiat. That is, they have to be declared "necessarily true" or "necessarily false", and this is plainly because their truth-status cannot be derived from the world, with which they cannot now be compared.

Or, more grandiloquently, their opposites have to be pronounced "unthinkable" by a sage-like figure -- a Philosopher of some sort.

Metaphysical decrees like this are as common as dirt in traditional thought.

Isolated theses like these have necessary truth or falsehood bestowed on them as a gift. Instead of being compared with material reality to ascertain their truth-status, they are derived solely from, or compared only with other related theses (or to be more honest, they are merely compared with yet more obscure jargon) as part of a terminological gesture at 'verification'. Their bona fides are thus thoroughly Ideal and 100% bogus. 'Confirmation' takes place only in the head of the theorist who dreamt them up.

The normal cannons that determine when something is true or false (i.e., a comparison with reality) have thus to be set aside, and a spurious 'evidential' ceremony substituted for it -- or, if it is carried out in advance, it is performed in the head as a sort of 'thought experiment', or perhaps as part of a very hasty and superficial consideration of the 'concepts' involved.

As far as traditional Philosophy (Metaphysics) is concerned, we know this is precisely what happened as the subject developed; philosophers simply invented more and more jargonised words, juggled with bogus terminology, and thereby derived countless 'truths' from thought/language alone.

But, none of these 'truths' can be given a sense, no matter what is done with them; in that case, they are all non-sensical.

These ideas are worked out in extensive detail, and defended in depth here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

This, of course, illustrates why Marx said:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels, (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold added.]

Now, there is a reason why traditional theorists attempted to derive 'truths' from thought alone. I have already summarised this reason; here it is again:


This traditional way of seeing reality taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who have always viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for each ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

And this is why all of traditional philosophy is dogmatic, and thus non-sensical.

Now the reason why this traditional approach to 'philosophical truth' has dominated 'western' (and 'eastern') thought for 2500 years was outlined by Marx, too:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Ibid., pp.64-65.]

The reason why such 'necessary truths' (and 'necessary falsehoods') decay into non-sense is connected with the following considerations:

So, to recap: an empirical proposition derives its sense from the truth possibilities it appears to hold open (which options will later be decided upon one way or the other by a confrontation with the material world). That is why the actual truth-value of, say, T1 (or its contradictory, T2) does not need to be known before it is understood, but it is also why evidence is relevant to establishing that truth-value.

T1: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

T2: Tony Blair does not own a copy of Das Kapital.

All that is required here is some grasp of the possibilities that both of these propositions hold open. T1 and T2 both have the same content, and are both made true or false by the same situation obtaining or not.

It is also why it is easy to imagine T1 to be true even if it is false, or false even if it is true. In general, comprehension of empirical propositions involves an understanding of the conditions under which they would/could be true or false; as is well-known, these are otherwise called their "truth-conditions". That, of course, allows anyone so minded to confirm their actual truth status by comparison with the world, since they would in that case know what to look for/expect.

As we saw earlier, these non-negotiable facts about language underpin the Marxist emphasis on the social -- and hence the communal and communicational -- nature of discourse, but they fly in the face of metaphysical and representational theories, which emphasise the opposite: that to understand a proposition goes hand-in-hand with automatically knowing it is true (or knowing it is false) -- by-passing the confirmation/disconfirmation stage (thus reducing the usual 'truth-conditions' to only one option).

However, there are other serious problems this approach to language faces over and above the fact it would make knowledge un-communicable, and thus impossible.

Intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such putatively empirical, but nonetheless metaphysical, sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical proposition is declared to be only true or only false (or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other) -- as a "law of cognition", perhaps -- or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical thesis.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both semantic options, and with that goes any sense that the original proposition might have had, rendering it incomprehensible.

This is because, as noted above, empirical propositions leave it open as to whether they are true or false; that is why their truth-values cannot simply be read-off from their content, why evidence is required in order to determine their semantic status, and why it is possible to understand them before their truth or falsehood is known. If that were not so, it would be impossible to ascertain their truth-status, as we have seen.

When this is not the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, when propositions are said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant. Thus, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition cannot be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or syntactic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such structural factors, that proposition cannot be empirical.

Furthermore, and worse, if a proposition is purported to be empirical, and yet it can only be false (as seems to be the case with, say, T3, below, according to Lenin) then, as we will see, paradox must ensue.

Consider the following sentences, the first of which Engels and Lenin would presumably have declared necessarily false (if not "unthinkable"):

T3: Motion sometimes occurs without matter.

T4: Motion without matter is unthinkable.

Unfortunately for Lenin, in order to declare T3 necessarily (and always) false, the possibility of its truth must first be entertained. Lenin has to think the offending words, "matter without motion".

If now the truth of T3 is to be permanently excluded by holding it as necessarily false (or 'unthinkable'), then whatever would make it true has to be ruled out conclusively. But, anyone doing that would have to know what T3 rules in (what makes it true) so that he/she could comprehend what it is that is being disqualified by its rejection as always and necessarily false. And yet, this is precisely what cannot be done if what T3 itself says is permanently ruled out on semantic/conceptual grounds.

Consequently, if a proposition like T3 is declared necessarily false this charade (i.e., the permanent exclusion of its truth) cannot take place -- since it would be impossible to say (or to think) what could count as making T3 true. Indeed, Lenin himself had to declare it "unthinkable" (in T4).

However, because the truth of the original proposition (T4) cannot even be conceived, Lenin was thus in no position to say what was excluded by its rejection.

Unfortunately, this now prevents any account being given of what would make T3 false, let alone 'necessarily' false. Given this twist, paradoxically, T3 would now be necessarily false if and only if it was not capable of being thought of as necessarily false!

That is: T3 could be thought of as necessarily false if and only if what would make it true could at least be entertained just in order to rule that out as necessarily false. But, according to Lenin, the conditions that would make T3 true cannot even be conceived, so this train of thought cannot be joined at any point. And, if the truth of T3 -- or the conditions under which it would be true -- cannot be conceived, then neither can its falsehood, for we would then not know what was being ruled out.

In that case, the negation of T3 can neither be accepted nor rejected by anyone, for no one would know what its content committed them to so that it could be either countenanced or repudiated. Hence, T3 would lose any sense it had, since it could not under any circumstances be either true or false.

This is in fact just another consequence of saying that an empirical proposition and its negation have the same content. If one option is ruled out, the other goes out of the window with it.

It is also connected with the non-sensicality of all metaphysical 'propositions', for their negations do not have the same content as the original non-negated 'proposition'.

["Proposition" is in 'scare quotes' here, since if it's not clear what is being proposed, then plainly nothing has yet been proposed.]

Indeed, because their negations do not picture anything that could be the case in any possible world, they have no content at all. That, of course, evacuates the content of the original non-negated proposition.

As we can now see, the radical misuse of language governing the formation of what look like empirical propositions (such as T3, or T4):

T4: Motion without matter is unthinkable.

T3: Motion sometimes occurs without matter.

T5: Motion never occurs without matter.

involves an implicit reference to the sorts of conditions that that underlie their normal employment/reception.

Hence, when such sentences are entertained, a pretence (often genuine) has to be maintained that they actually mean something, that they are capable of being understood. This is done even if certain restrictions are later placed on what they seem to imply -- as in T4. In that case, a pretence has to be maintained that we understand what might make such propositions true, and their 'negations' false, so that those like T3 can be declared 'necessarily' false or "unthinkable".

But, this entire exercise is an empty charade, for no content can be given to propositions like T3 (and thus to T4, nor in fact to any metaphysical 'proposition').

With respect to motionless matter, even Lenin had to admit that!

Indeed, he it was who told us this 'idea' was "unthinkable".

More details here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

The same argument applies to all the 'necessary truths' that have been concocted by philosophers since Anaximander (http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/) was a lad.

[This does not imply they all used the phrase 'necessary truth', but the theses they cobbled-together weren't materially different from such 'super-truths'.]

Since allegedly 'necessary truths' are in fact misconstrued rules of language (we can see that from the way their 'truth' allegedly fallows from the way certain words are used), if they are deemed 'false', then the meaning of the terms involved must change, and when that happens the proposition involved no longer has the same content as the original.

Hence: since 'necessary propositions' cannot be false, they cannot be true either.

And, as I pointed out, this is no surprise: 'necessary propositions' are misconstrued rules for the use of certain words, and rules can be neither true nor false, only obeyed or otherwise, practical or otherwise...

And that is why the theses traditional philosophers have concocted cannot be compared with reality -- they make no sense at all.

[Meridian]

You are saying that working class people cannot use philosophical language or come up with their own philosophy as opposed to that of the ruling class.
Have anyone said that working class people cannot use philosophical language, or even themselves be confused by philosophical questions? I've come from a working class family and have been working class to varying degree my entire life yet up until about a year ago I could of been described as something of a neo-Platonist.


From my impression of what you have written so far, it seems that you consider that only the ruling class can commit the abominable sin of "distorting" so-called ordinary language to confuse or "distort" so-called working class ordinary language. However, this does not conform with reality as working class people are perfectly capable of coming up with a language of their own on discussing abstract philosophical concepts that may or may not match with what the ruling class philosophers have come up with.
Same as above.


In short, your whole differentiation of language between what supposed working class are only supposed to use and what the supposed philosophers are only supposed to use is based on the unverifiable belief that only philosophers who may or may not belong to the ruling class can supposedly "distort" "ordinary language", which supposedly working class people are supposed to use. This represents a condescending attitude towards the working class and presumes that the working class is not capable of thinking of philosophical without automatically following supposed "ruling class" ideology.
I can not speak for others but I don't think the main point is about the differentiation between language the working class uses and language the ruling class or philosophers use. I think the main point is that philosophical language is distinctly characterized by not making sense. Whether the philosophical ideas of a time are the ideas of the ruling class is another issue, something I do believe at least Marx held to be true.


You are deliberately implying that all philosophers are by default "ruling class" which is an unverifiable claim.
I think this is a result of your own misunderstanding.


Also, the concept of the "ruling class" is also an anti-historical claim as it does not say whether that ruling class was progressive or not.
This sentence is very unclear. A concept is not a claim. If we were to make a claim, such as "one or more ruling classes have existed throughout the history of mankind", such a claim would not be "anti-historical". Finally, whether or not the class was progressive is not even touched upon.


If we are to consider the ruling class of the bourgeoisie, who came into existence concurrently with or succeeding the appearance of the proletariat class, during the period of transition between feudalism and capitalism, objectively, the bourgeoisie were the progressive class as they represented a higher mode of production than what preceded them, namely feudalism. So, not all "ruling classes" are automatically reactionary. So, the language used by the ruling bourgeois class during that period was indeed revolutionary and not reactionary. An analysis that automatically rejects all ruling classes as reactionary without reference to the historical context is not a materialist one, but one that is idealist.
Again, whether you are right or wrong, you are misunderstanding the topic. Ordinary language means just that, ordinary language, like English, Swedish, Moroccan, etc. The only reason to use the prefix "ordinary" is to make it clear for philosophers who are not aware of their own misuse of language. The language of philosophers is not "bad" because it is reactionary, but it doesn't make sense because it is misuse of the common languages, for example in the form of nominalization, or in the form of confusion over nouns.

[ChrisK]

You are saying that working class people cannot use philosophical language or come up with their own philosophy as opposed to that of the ruling class.

From my impression of what you have written so far, it seems that you consider that only the ruling class can commit the abominable sin of "distorting" so-called ordinary language to confuse or "distort" so-called working class ordinary language. However, this does not conform with reality as working class people are perfectly capable of coming up with a language of their own on discussing abstract philosophical concepts that may or may not match with what the ruling class philosophers have come up with.

Where did I say that workers can't use philosophical langauge? Putting words in my mouth does not make an argument.

You completely missed the point of what I wrote. I'm against philosophical language as an entirety as philosophical concepts are a load of shit created by misusing ordinary language. The working class creating a philosophy would be worthless.



In short, your whole differentiation of language between what supposed working class are only supposed to use and what the supposed philosophers are only supposed to use is based on the unverifiable belief that only philosophers who may or may not belong to the ruling class can supposedly "distort" "ordinary language", which supposedly working class people are supposed to use. This represents a condescending attitude towards the working class and presumes that the working class is not capable of thinking of philosophical without automatically following supposed "ruling class" ideology.


Who said they were only supposed to use one type of language? I'm saying that these are the langauages used in practice.

Philosophical concepts are by their very nature ruling class. If you have problems with this, take it up with Marx who claimed that the ruling ideas of the times are those of the ruling class.



You are deliberately implying that all philosophers are by default "ruling class" which is an unverifiable claim.

They are not all ruling class, where do I claim this? I do claim their ideas tend to support the ruling class. Philosophers, however, are by definition academics, ergo, not working class.



Also, the concept of the "ruling class" is also an anti-historical claim as it does not say whether that ruling class was progressive or not. If we are to consider the ruling class of the bourgeoisie, who came into existence concurrently with or succeeding the appearance of the proletariat class, during the period of transition between feudalism and capitalism, objectively, the bourgeoisie were the progressive class as they represented a higher mode of production than what preceded them, namely feudalism. So, not all "ruling classes" are automatically reactionary. So, the language used by the ruling bourgeois class during that period was indeed revolutionary and not reactionary. An analysis that automatically rejects all ruling classes as reactionary without reference to the historical context is not a materialist one, but one that is idealist.

What does this have to do with anything? Further, how is that idealist? People throwing around that phrase without know what it means is starting to bug me.

[ChrisK]

You cannot grasp the fact that the working class can produce its own philosophers and go on to claim that all philosophy does not make sense because it is not how "ordinary working class people" use it.

I said they could. I also say it would be a waste of time as philosophical language contains no true meaning. Ie, philosophical statements and problems are nonsense.


Why? If "ordinary language" is supposedly something created by the working class, why cannot philosophy created by the working class be also treated as "ordinary language"? Why bring in the artificial categorisation of philosophical and ordinary language?

It is not "created" by the working class. It is language as it is ordinarily used by people. You didn't read my first post did you?


his is just a distortion of Marxism. Marx also ascribed the notion of different classes being progressive at different periods of human history. So, we cannot dismiss all "ruling class" ideas, as some of them may be progressive depending on the historical context in which they came up.

We can dismiss nonsense. We can dismiss philosophy that seeks to learn about the underlying nature of the world through thought alone. We can dismiss bullshit.


Nonsense. Workers can also be philosophers.

Name one. (And yes, philosophy is a profession, one that is performed in a university)

[ChrisK]

What is "true meaning"? Any truth attributed to anything by anyone is not something that exists on its own apart from the historical context in which it is created. What is "true" for one epoch of humanity (example, feudalism) may not be true for another epoch (example, communism).

Now your being silly. I mean it has no meaning.


If it is used by people, why is language used by people in another epoch of human history suddenly become invalid? The reason why Marxists attach such significance to the working class in this epoch of history is because it is the only class capable of revolutionary activity. If so, why cannot the language used by the bourgeoisie in a previous epoch be considered as ordinary language? In other words, your consideration of language is wilfully neglectful of the class origins of that language and the historical context of those classes.

You aren't so good at reading. I never said anything anywhere akin to that. I said what ordinary language is. I never said that older language is invalid. Learn to read, your arguing with an imagined foe.


Seeing as the working class has not yet broken free of capitalism and conducted a revolution, my hypothesis of a working class philosophy was meant to be a philosophy of the future, not something that already exists in this epoch of capitalism. Also, I don't see why philosophy cannot be "performed" by a non-professional, namely, a worker in their leisure time. I am not interested in any formulations of communism in which workers have to spend all 24 hours working in factories, as you are suggesting they should. Is not one of the aims of communism to decrease the working hours of the to a minimum so that the people can spend more of their time in leisure and related activities, possibly including philosophy?

Sure it can be performed. That doesn't mean that it isn't a misuse of language that has no meaning.

[turquino]

turquino:


Even if the use of such nouns is acceptable, as sometimes it is, the difference here is that physicists have to interface with the material world to test their theories. Philosophers can't.
...
And that is why the theses traditional philosophers have concocted cannot be compared with reality -- they make no sense.
In the history of science there are instances when empirical evidence did not point to the correctness of one theory over another. This is the problem of underdetermination. Two theories might account for the same phenomenon in radically different ways. Merely interfacing with the world might not be enough to decide whether a statement is true or false, that can only be arbitrated by the rules of the theoretical tradition it’s based in. The point is that science and its specialized language starts to sound an awful lot like philosophy.

[ChrisK]

Yet, you referenced the working class in defining what "ordinary language" is. Going back to what you said, ordinary language is just something used by workers. Also, philosophical language is also something arguably used by workers. So, why the artificial differentiation between ordinary and philosophical language seeing as both can be of the same class origin?

Going back to what I said, your full of shit.


Ordinary language is language as is developed through ordinary social interaction. It is how humans speak to one another in everyday settings such as in the workplace. Hence, why we call it the language of the working class. It is used by the working class on a daily basis. Its roots can be found in developing due to the introduction of collective labor in humankind. It is through social interaction that both production and language came about.

Find where I say only workers use it and that they are the basis for determining ordinary language. I said people, not workers. Its roots are in labor because that is how language came about. Stop putting words into my mouth.


No meaning for whom? In what context? I have to dismiss this "no meaning" without any reference to the historical context. In any case, not for the workers, if they came up with the philosophy.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/question-being-t137235/index.html?t=137235

This deals from ancient Greece to modern times. I'm currently updating this essay for an undergrad research project.

[Hit The North]

My question is this:

If ordinary language is not class-based and if it can be used to convey reactionary as well as progressive values and outlooks, what is the point, for us as revolutionaries, in emphasising it above specialist discourses?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marxist Noob:


You are saying that working class people cannot use philosophical language or come up with their own philosophy as opposed to that of the ruling class.

They certainly can, just like they can use religious language, but that does not imply that it makes any sense -- as my long post above shows.


From my impression of what you have written so far, it seems that you consider that only the ruling class can commit the abominable sin of "distorting" so-called ordinary language to confuse or "distort" so-called working class ordinary language. However, this does not conform with reality as working class people are perfectly capable of coming up with a language of their own on discussing abstract philosophical concepts that may or may not match with what the ruling class philosophers have come up with.

As Marx noted -- if they do that, they should take his advice and return to using ordinary language.


In short, your whole differentiation of language between what supposed working class are only supposed to use and what the supposed philosophers are only supposed to use is based on the unverifiable belief that only philosophers who may or may not belong to the ruling class can supposedly "distort" "ordinary language", which supposedly working class people are supposed to use. This represents a condescending attitude towards the working class and presumes that the working class is not capable of thinking of philosophical without automatically following supposed "ruling class" ideology.

You are deliberately implying that all philosophers are by default "ruling class" which is an unverifiable claim.

No one said that philosophers have to belong to the ruling-class; as Marx noted:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65, bold added]

As is easy to show, up until relatively recent times, philosophers were either drawn form the educated elite at the top of society or were in their pay.

Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere at this site (in answer to the question, "Why is Dialectical Materialism a world view?"):


There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

1) The founders of this quasi-religion [Dialectical Marxism] weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers", administrators and theorists, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm).

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated before they became revolutionaries to believe there was just such a hidden world that governed everything, when they became revolutionaries would naturally look for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and their reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they must be our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also Teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could 'legitimately' substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why Dialectical Materialism is a world-view.

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that Dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact OK, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts; it tells such comrades that reality 'contradicts' outward appearances. Hence, even if Dialectical Marxism appears to be a long-term failure, those with the equivalent of a dialectical 'third eye' can see that the opposite is in fact the case: Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success!

In that case, awkward facts can either be ignored or they can be re-configured into their opposites.

Hence:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

I stand no chance...

So, if working people invent their own philosophical languages/theories, which allow them to access 'truths' from thought alone, they too will be reproducing a ruling-class view of the world.

Not only that, they too will have invented non-sensorial theories, as I pointed out above.


Also, the concept of the "ruling class" is also an anti-historical claim as it does not say whether that ruling class was progressive or not. If we are to consider the ruling class of the bourgeoisie, who came into existence concurrently with or succeeding the appearance of the proletariat class, during the period of transition between feudalism and capitalism, objectively, the bourgeoisie were the progressive class as they represented a higher mode of production than what preceded them, namely feudalism. So, not all "ruling classes" are automatically reactionary. So, the language used by the ruling bourgeois class during that period was indeed revolutionary and not reactionary. An analysis that automatically rejects all ruling classes as reactionary without reference to the historical context is not a materialist one, but one that is idealist

Whether or not they were 'progressive', their world view is anti-materialist, and when expressed philosophically, its theses are non-sensical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


If ordinary language is not class-based and if it can be used to convey reactionary as well as progressive values and outlooks, what is the point, for us as revolutionaries, in emphasising it above specialist discourses?

I have already covered this in an earlier reply to you. Is your memory failing?

Here it is again:


BTB:


The problem with an appeal to ordinary language is that it cannot provide us with a critique of ordinary language itself and recognise that ordinary language inevitably becomes the vehicle for ideological persuasion and social control.

1) Not so. Admittedly, ordinary language may be used to express the most patent of falsehoods and the most regressive of doctrines, but it cannot itself be affected by "false consciousness", nor can it be "ideological".

Without doubt, everyday sentences can express all manner of backward, racist, sexist and ideologically-compromised ideas, but this is not the fault of the medium in which these are expressed, any more than it is the fault of, say, a computer if it is used to post racist bile on a web page. Ideologically-tainted ideas expressed in ordinary language result either from its misuse or from the employment of specialised terminology borrowed from religious dogma, sexist beliefs, reactionary ideology, racist theories and superstitious ideas. This is not to suggest that ordinary humans do not, or cannot, speak in such backward ways; but these are dependent on the latter being expressed in ordinary language, but are not dependent on that language itself.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that this defence of ordinary language is not being advanced dogmatically. Every user of the vernacular knows it to be true since they know that for each and every sexist, racist and ideologically-compromised sentence expressible in ordinary language there exists its negation.

This is why socialists can say such things as: "Blacks are not inferior"; "Human beings are not selfish"; "Wages are not fair", "Women are not objects", "Belief in the after-life is baseless" -- and still be understood, even by those still in thrall to such ideas, but who might still take an opposite view. If ordinary language were identical with 'commonsense' -- and if it were ideological (per se), in the way that some imagine -- you just could not say such things.

We all know this to be true -- certainly, socialists should know this --, because in our practical discourse we manage to deny such things every day.

In this regard, it is as ironic as it is inexcusable that there are revolutionaries who, while they are only too ready to regale us with the alleged limitations of ordinary language -- on the grounds that it reflects "commodity fetishism", "false consciousness" or "static thinking" --, are quite happy to accept (in whole or in part) impenetrably obscure ideas lifted from the work of a card-carrying, ruling-class-warrior like Hegel. Not only are his theories based on alienated thought (i.e., mystical Christianity), his Absolute Idealism was a direct result of a systematic fetishisation of language.

2) Ordinary language cannot be 'critiqued'.

I will supply a proof of this on request.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Turquino:


In the history of science there are instances when empirical evidence did not point to the correctness of one theory over another.

Then it is arguable that these weren't scientific theories, to begin with. Which ones did you have in mind, anyway?


This is the problem of underdetermination. Two theories might account for the same phenomenon in radically different ways. Merely interfacing with the world might not be enough to decide whether a statement is true or false, that can only be arbitrated by the rules of the theoretical tradition it’s based in. The point is that science and its specialized language starts to sound an awful lot like philosophy.

You are, I think, confusimg empirical propositions with theoretical propositions. A proposition is empirical if its truth value can be determined by the way the world happens to be. Theoretical propositions do not work this way. They function more like rules, and since rules cannot be true and cannot be false -- they can only be observed or not, accepted or not --, then no wonder they are 'underdetermined' by the evidence.

In fact, they have a totally different relation to evidential propositions -- which we can go into in another thread.

[Hit The North]

BTB:

I have already cobered this in an earlier reply to you. Is your memory failing?


No, my memory is fine, although perhaps my comprehension is failing. Whilst I thank you for your detailed reply I still cannot understand how an appeal to ordinary language is of use to revolutionaries in our struggle against capitalism (as distinct from the struggle of anti-philosophers with philosophy).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


No, my memory is fine, although perhaps my comprehension is failing. Whilst I thank you for your detailed reply I still cannot understand how an appeal to ordinary language is of use to revolutionaries in our struggle against capitalism (as distinct from the struggle of anti-philosophers with philosophy).

Then you should pick a fight with the editors and writers of Socialist Worker, and Socialist Review, who use ordinary language all the time.

Moreover, I have never argued that only ordinary language must be used in the class war; in fact, in a much earlier reply to you (about our capacity to explain change in ordinary language) I posted this comment:


Here is a greatly shortened list of ordinary words (restricted to modern English) that allow speakers to refer to changes of unbounded complexity:


Vary, alter, adjust, amend, make, produce, revise, improve, deteriorate, edit, bend, straighten, weave, dig, plough, sow, twist, turn, tighten, fasten, loosen, relax, tense up, slacken, bind, wrap, pluck, rip, tear, mend, perforate, repair, damage, mutate, metamorphose, transmute, sharpen, modify, develop, expand, contract, constrict, constrain, widen, lock, unlock, swell, flow, differentiate, divide, partition, unite, amalgamate, connect, fast, slow, swift, rapid, hasty, heat up, melt, harden, cool down, flash, shine, glow, drip, cascade, drop, pick up, fade, darken, wind, unwind, meander, peel, scrape, graze, file, scour, dislodge, is, was, will be, will have been, had, will have had, went, go, going, gone, return, lost, age, flood, precipitate, crumble, disintegrate, erode, corrode, rust, flake, shatter, percolate, seep, tumble, mix, separate, cut, chop, crush, grind, shred, slice, dice, saw, sew, knit, spread, coalesce, congeal, fall, climb, rise, ascend, descend, slide, slip, roll, spin, revolve, oscillate, undulate, rotate, wave, conjure, quickly, slowly, instantaneously, suddenly, gradually, rapidly, hastily, inadvertently, accidentally, extremely, snap, chew, gnaw, digest, ingest, excrete, join, resign, part, sell, buy, acquire, lose, find, search, explore, cover, uncover, reveal, stretch, depress, compress, lift, put down, win, ripen, germinate, conceive, gestate, abort, die, rot, perish, grow, decay, fold, many, more, less, fewer, steady, steadily, jerkily, smoothly, awkwardly, quickly, very, extremely, exceedingly, intermittent, discontinuous, continuous, continual, push, pull, slide, jump, sit, stand, run, chase, walk, swim, drown, immerse, plunge, break, split, charge, retreat, assault, squash, raze, demolish, dismantle, pulverise, disintegrate, dismember, replace, undo, reverse, repeal, enact, quash, throw, catch, hour, minute, second, instant, invent, innovate, rescind, destroy, annihilate, extirpate, boil, freeze, thaw, cook, liquefy, solidify, congeal, neutralise, flatten, crimple, evaporate, condense, dissolve, process, mollify, pacify, calm down, terminate, initiate, instigate, enrage, inflame, protest, challenge, expel, eject, remove, overthrow, expropriate, scatter, distribute, gather, assemble, defeat, strike, revolt, riot, march, demonstrate, rebel, campaign, agitate, organise...

Naturally, it would not be difficult to extend this list until it contained literally tens of thousands of words all capable of depicting countless changes in limitless detail (especially if it is augmented with the language of mathematics, science and Historical Materialsm). It is only a myth put about by Hegel and DM-theorists that ordinary language cannot cope with change. On the contrary, it performs this task far better than the incomprehensible and impenetrably obscure jargon Hegel invented in order to fix something that was not broken.

Bold added.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Marxist Noob, like so many others who post here and on the internet, you have clearly confused ad hominem with abuse.

Check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1224595&postcount=8


Language developed through social interaction. Yes. But that is the history of language, not the history of so-called "ordinary language". You have failed to substantiate your division between so-called ordinary ordinary language and philosophical language. You have yet to demonstrate why philosophical language cannot be formed through so-called "everyday settings". As far as language qua language goes, its all a means of communicating ideas. Even the Marx quote which you posted in your OP talks only about language, not "ordinary language".

I have covered much of this in my reply to you above, and here is Marx's quote again:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.

The inference is plain; philosophers are enjoind to return to "ordinary language', since their language is a "distorted language of the actual world".

And I have covered this point, too:


Language developed through social interaction. Yes. But that is the history of language, not the history of so-called "ordinary language".

Here it is again:


Since Engels and Marx had hypothesisd that language was invented as a result of collective labour, then language is naturally the invention and preserve of the working class. But, since those you mention also have to be able to communicate with one another, and with workers, they too are socialised in ordinary language....

So ordinary language, the language of the working class, is the language we are all socialised in. That is why revolutionary papers right across the planet use it.

Technical and other specialised vocabularies may then be superimposd on it, but that's another story.

Moreover, not only does the proletariat form the vast bulk of society (almost right across the planet), but through its labour it runs the world. That being so, ordinary language is indeed their language, just as it has to be the language of anyone who not only wants to get anything done, but who wants to be able to communicate with others.

Furthermore, since the working classes (in ancient, medieval and modern society, all over the planet) have comprised the overwhelming majority, the vernacular -- ordinary langauge -- is the language we have all had to use (throughout history) in our interaction with one another and the world.

[ZeroNowhere]

No, my memory is fine, although perhaps my comprehension is failing. Whilst I thank you for your detailed reply I still cannot understand how an appeal to ordinary language is of use to revolutionaries in our struggle against capitalism (as distinct from the struggle of anti-philosophers with philosophy).
I tend to think that it's similar to atheism in a sense. On the one hand, it makes sure that we don't end up spouting bunkum, and rather analyse the concrete relations; idealism and other forms of nonsense are inimical to the aim of the material analysis of society. In other words, a material analysis of society must begin from what Marx and Engels referred to as 'real premises', whereas philosophy has tended to attempt the rejection of these premises (hence Hegel viewed philosophy as idealism, and materialism as 'unphilosophie'), so that the purpose of, for example, Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' is precisely the vindication of the use of these premises. This involves the grasping of language as essentially a relation between people, a social relation, and in the same way that Feuerbach's critique lead to Marx's view that religion is merely the expression of an alienated form of man's relationship to society, so did Wittgenstein conclude that philosophical problems were the product of a problematic state of society (he says this quite clearly in his 'Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics'), and hence stated that the reason why he could not found a school is that he advocated the alteration of society rather than simply changing some people's minds.

While I don't believe that he actually arrived at socialism, nonetheless the point is that language is a social relation, and philosophy comparable to religion in this context, as the alienation of a social relation, which comes to stand over man and be seen as independent of and above human social relations, so that its abolition requires the institution of human control over their own social relations.

However, ultimately the reason why it is helpful in the present is firstly in clarifying a material analysis of society, and secondly because philosophy is simply an expression of society (hence Marx's critique of Hegel, in which this is essentially the whole point, that Hegel's views are an expression of capitalist society), and in addition is often utilized in reactionary or obfuscatory ways (obfuscatory ways including social contract theory and such, which are generally premised upon the eternalisation of modern society, as with the divine first impulse which Engels points out in 'Dialectics of Nature' to originate in a static view of the universe), as well as often involving, as Guy Robinson points out, the abstract individual of capitalist society (he locates this in a large part of modern philosophy and philosophical arguments), so that dissolving these may serve not only to dissolve various attempted defences of the capitalist order, but also result in the revelation that the abstract individuals and such of philosophy are simply those of capitalism, and hence the location of philosophy in underlying social relations, as with ideology ('freedom', 'equality', etc), something which Robinson also attempts.

Similarly, religion has also been used as a justification of modern society, and Marx is quite explicit in identifying the abstract individual of modern society with that of Christianity (perhaps a bit too early in Capital, though, and it's quite possible that this would have alienated some readers), a view originating from Feuerbach's analysis. This is something which Colletti has already covered brilliantly in 'Marxism and Hegel'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero:


While I don't believe that he actually arrived at socialism, nonetheless the point is that language is a social relation, and philosophy comparable to religion in this context, as the alienation of a social relation, which comes to stand over man and be seen as independent of and above human social relations, so that its abolition requires the institution of human control over their own social relations.

I have assembled most of the available evidence that shows that Wittgenstein came closer to a Marxist view of things than any other great 'theorist' since Marx himself, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Wittgenstein.htm

Use the 'Quick Links' at the top to go to Section One, and then consult Note 3 in that section.

[Hit The North]

Thank you Rosa and ZeroNowhere for your responses. I have a few questions.


I tend to think that it's similar to atheism in a sense. On the one hand, it makes sure that we don't end up spouting bunkum, and rather analyse the concrete relations; idealism and other forms of nonsense are inimical to the aim of the material analysis of society.

How does it do this? As Rosa points out, you can express any kind of bunkum using ordinary language. Whether I use the philosophy of Aquinas or the specialist language of sociobiology or the common language of an average sexist, to argue for the subordination of women, I am still making the same political and social point.

As for beginning our analysis of society on the basis of 'real premises', surely it depends on what those premises are? Other materialist approaches to understanding society, such as Hobbes, Locke, the Scottish School, or later sociologists such as Durkheim do not come to the same conclusions as Marx and Engels. In fact, materialism is historically as central to bourgeois hegemony as idealism is, is it not?


While I don't believe that he actually arrived at socialism, nonetheless the point is that language is a social relation, and philosophy comparable to religion in this context, as the alienation of a social relation, which comes to stand over man and be seen as independent of and above human social relations, so that its abolition requires the institution of human control over their own social relations.

I agree. However, as Marxists, we assume that all social relations under capitalism are alienated, therefore how can ordinary language escape this any more than philosophical language? Also, it is not just language which is a social relation but meaning also. Therefore how can we assume that ordinary language is intrinsically more meaningful than other, more specialised modes of expression, which are themselves also products of social relations?

Also, isn't it the case that ordinary language use itself mystifies the world? For instance, we talk about the sun 'rising' and 'setting' and whilst this appears to be a common sense depiction, it actually misleads us about the actual relation between the motion of the Sun and the Earth. This, of course, is why Marx argues we need science.

Finally, how can we separate ordinary language off from religious, philosophical or scientific language without making it yet another case of an ideal language, employed by anti-philosophers in their philosophical critique?

[ChrisK]

Ad hominem.

Its only an ad hominen if I attack you and not your ideas. Instead I attack you and your ideas. Not an ad hominen.


This is going around in circles. Language developed through social interaction. Yes. But that is the history of language, not the history of so-called "ordinary language". You have failed to substantiate your division between so-called ordinary ordinary language and philosophical language. You have yet to demonstrate why philosophical language cannot be formed through so-called "everyday settings". As far as language qua language goes, its all a means of communicating ideas. Even the Marx quote which you posted in your OP talks only about language, not "ordinary language".

Ummm, when language started that is when ordinary language started. Specialized and philosophical languages developed afterowrkds.

I have substantiated the division through that link.

Philosophical language cannot be formed without distorting ordinary language because by definition philosophy deals with things that cannot be proven or substaniated. And the Marx quote from the German Ideology certainly does talk about ordinary language. Reading difficulties still?


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.


You just seem to be holding on to a conspiracy theory where the ruling class surreptitiously introduces their "ruling class ideas" through "philosophical language". In other words, since you claim that language evolves independently of class, your claim that of "philosophical language is ruling class" is, according to your own logic, nonsense.

No I don't, I've never come close to claiming that. Stop making up shit.

[ZeroNowhere]

How does it do this? As Rosa points out, you can express any kind of bunkum using ordinary language.Sure, and one may express bunkum without invoking God as well. The point is that it eliminates a potential source of it, which indeed guarantees its existence inasmuch as it is utilized. Inasmuch as we see the flaws in arguments, or indeed their lack of meaning, so are we able to avoid them; similarly, arguing for socialism because God said so is a flawed argument. We must seek the real justification and necessity of communism in real, material conditions, and hence may not rest content with either religion or philosophy here. One may, of course, be a communist based on religion, but ultimately if this is your main basis you are more or less precluded from an actual understanding of the state of society, and more importantly of the proletariat as agent of change, and indeed the material changes (abolition of value, etc) which are necessary.


As for beginning our analysis of society on the basis of 'real premises', surely it depends on what those premises are?Sure, but once we're simply talking about the real world, we may simply argue on empirical grounds. Philosophy, on the other hand, avoids empirical grounds, so that you have philosophers gushing about how deep philosophy is because 'solipsism may not be refuted!' and such.


However, as Marxists, we assume that all social relations under capitalism are alienated, therefore how can ordinary language escape this any more than philosophical language?Production still produces, and language still communicates in reality. Just as capitalist production is necessarily production of use-values, concrete labour, as well as value-production, abstract labour, as you cannot have production which does not in fact produce, so could you not have language, and hence alienated language, without actual communication. Indeed, Marx often takes time to look at the development of production as such, pointing out that the world-market and expropriation of surplus-labour by the state simply expresses man's labour becoming social on a world-wide scale, 'world-social' so to speak, and that surplus-labour in itself simply represents the development of human labour into social labour, labour for the purpose of society rather than simply individual consumption, that the production of wealth in and for itself simply represents the all-around production of man's capacities and wants, and indeed that value itself is the expression of the social allocation of labour in alienated form; therefore, the capitalist production process is still a production process, and the development of it not only develops value-production, but also develops real production, the forces of production, to the point where they come into conflict with capitalism. However, initially it is based upon the development of previous production techniques, and may indeed only find its basis in what came before. However, the absolute development of production is in fact carried out in the context of capitalist society, and hence expresses this in unsafe labour, awful conditions, Taylorism, etc, as well as in its character as value-production.

The analogy being this: once capitalism begins, one also has previously existing languages, just as previously existing methods of production, which nonetheless develop as more people are brought into contact, and hence communities are centralised, etc, so that we have the spread of languages, and some degree of homogenization, etc. However, this stems simply from its character as language, as a means of communication. Indeed, as capitalist society develops, words will have to evolve to meet this trend, from expressions such as 'minding one's own business' to words such as 'capital' itself, which takes on its specific meaning as a result of, well, capital. Of course, language shall also develop in a form reflecting the conditions of class rule, and hence expressing the prejudices and illusions of the members of society, and especially the ruling class, about society. This ought to be criticized, of course. Nonetheless, language must remain capable of communication, just as production must remain production of use-values. The expression, "My name is Bob the Builder," still serves the purpose of communication. In other words, it is possible for some of language to serve for obfuscation, but not all of it, or we shouldn't be able to say anything; nouns used in ways which express class prejudice must nonetheless be connected with 'is', 'and', and so on. Computers are means of production, but they would not have to cease to exist for communism to come into being, and the alienation of capitalist production ended. Hence, while capitalism may distort the forms of concrete labour in order to profit as well as making it abstract labour, it nonetheless must be concrete labour, and indeed capitalists in competition are forced to increase concrete productivity, while value-productivity does not alter, or even reduces due to labour being offloaded. Similarly, language must retain its character as 'concrete language', as a means of communication, if it is to remain language at all, and not simply random utterances of noise. Indeed, just as value-production presupposes concrete production, so does the alienation of language presuppose its 'concrete' usage.

Of course, the difference is that under capitalism, (almost) all labour takes the form of abstract labour, whereas such is not necessarily the case with language. On the other hand, not all people are religious either, but religion finds its basis in the social relations between people, and hence both religion and philosophy take on new developments with the development of capitalism, while nonetheless not originating from it (ie. they existed prior to it).

Indeed, in the case of the private language argument, it is clear how the opposing conception, of men creating private languages as isolated language producers independent of society, would arise from the abstract individual which dominates bourgeois sciences in general (political science, economics, etc), and indeed one may make similar observations on the views of the learning of language which Wittgenstein criticizes at the beginning of PI, where people are essentially isolated individuals, and simply use the law of induction to conclude that when other people point to an object and utter a word, they therefore mean the word; on the other hand, actually looking at the ways in which language is used, at prepositions and such, makes it clear that the process must be more social; in fact, one may see the parallels between the view of using private languages and associating these with the words of others in order to come to the general, social language and the process of commodity exchange. Similar things apply to the views of emotions which Wittgenstein criticizes (people have separate emotions, but how are they to bring this to common language? Well, how do we in fact use emotion-words?). He also exposes things such as hard determinism as simply attitudes, from which it may be seen that their spread, and the view of humans as machines, indeed parallels the subordination of humans to their own social relations in the form of things.


Therefore how can we assume that ordinary language is intrinsically more meaningful than other, more specialised modes of expression, which are themselves also products of social relations?When Wittgenstein used the phrase 'ordinary language', it was in the context of the repudiation of the idea of an 'ideal', philosophical language. Here, it is not being used in contrast to 'specialised language', but rather to philosophical language. Wittgenstein's point is that there is no need for a special, ideal philosophical language due to language as it stands being unable to express essential truths. However, he doesn't use the phrase much, and I suppose that it could be misleading to look at it as fundamental. Nonetheless, the point stands that I can very well express the fact that I am typing without any need for an ideal, philosophical language.


Also, isn't it the case that ordinary language use itself mystifies the world? For instance, we talk about the sun 'rising' and 'setting' and whilst this appears to be a common sense depiction, it actually misleads us about the actual relation between the motion of the Sun and the Earth.We still use the terms, however, and they do have definite meanings which are not mystifying at all. Inasmuch as the purpose of language is communication here, what matters is how the words are used, and at present they are not used to put forward the proposition that the sun is actually rising, as it were. At least, I presume that you do not tend towards getting misled by people using the phrase into the view that the sun is actually rising or setting, and indeed children learning the language would be corrected if they got this impression. Therefore, there's not much point is calling it imperfect, as this leaves it unclear what sort of perfection we are going for here; do we wish to communicate, or is language a means of expressing the actual state of the world? If the latter, then is it really the case that phrases such as "Fire!", "Gadzooks!", "Do not kill," and "Fuck!" are primarily intended to express the state of the world?


Finally, how can we separate ordinary language off from religious, philosophical or scientific language without making it yet another case of an ideal language, employed by anti-philosophers in their philosophical critique?Philosophical language often uses the terms of 'ordinary language', as it were, the difference is that it uses them without sense, and hence spouts precisely nonsense. Therefore, we end up for example with some sort of transcendental view of 'Truth' as something ultimately unattainable, rather than as simply a word used a certain way within human, social language-games. In other words, language becomes independent from human social usage, so that it appears that if one is to grasp their true essence, or find real truths, or attain real knowledge, one must step outside of language, and yet are unable to do so, for then one could not speak. What he is trying to do is find a 'truth' independent of our actual usage of the word, a sort of transcendental truth. We have essentially an image of trying to escape from language and grasp a higher truth, and yet without language one could quite simply not communicate. 'Truth' comes to exist separately from human language, despite being simply a word within it, and takes on an amorphous, transcendent form. In that case, language, our social relation, comes to be separate from us, and to stand above us as something unattainable; hence, the conception of the ideal language, so that our actual languages are only approximations of an ideal language which stands above us, again unattainable. In other words, language, a means of communication and social relation, is in effect simply an approximation of a higher, ideal language; this ideal language stands above us, and we only struggle to approximate it down here on Earth, despite language in fact being a relation between different men, and simply a means by which humans communicate with each other. The parallels between this and other forms of alienation should be evident here.

As regards religious language, inasmuch as it has sense, it would form a part of 'ordinary language' here. However, one may wish for it to be abolished. Nonetheless, this could be compared to wishing for the abolition of the word 'nigger', which indeed did have a certain meaning in language. Now, one could say that this meant that one was striving towards an 'ideal language', namely one without the word 'nigger'. However, it should be quite clear that this is very much distinct from a philosophical 'ideal language'. We criticize the latter, but have no problem with the growth of specialised language, or indeed the evolution of language as a whole, as indeed it must evolve as our forms of life evolve; all that we take issue with is the use of language which lacks sense. In fact, we don't even necessarily take issue with that; there's nothing much wrong with using words like 'jabberwocky'. However, when one seeks to use words from our 'ordinary' language in ways in which they essentially are robbed of any meaning, such as treating 'truth' as a thing, or asking 'How is green run?' or 'What is 'is'?' (with the expectation of something more than 'a word', or various specifications of such), or 'What is the silly? What is the essence of the silly?', then one is philosophizing, and should probably stop, and, indeed, reduce things to the language from which you have abstracted. Hence, for example, "The question [of] whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question." Inasmuch as one is arguing that certain words are bad aesthetically, morally, etc, that is out of the realm of philosophy, but no less valid or important for that; language must evolve, after all.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


As Rosa points out, you can express any kind of bunkum using ordinary language.

No, what I said was this:


Without doubt, everyday sentences can express all manner of backward, racist, sexist and ideologically-compromised ideas, but this is not the fault of the medium in which these are expressed, any more than it is the fault of, say, a computer if it is used to post racist bile on a web page. Ideologically-tainted ideas expressed in ordinary language result either from its misuse or from the employment of specialised terminology borrowed from religious dogma, sexist beliefs, reactionary ideology, racist theories and superstitious ideas....

I did not use the phrase 'any old bunkum' since I have also said here and in my essays that it is not possible to form philosophical pseudo-propositions in ordinary language.

And I went on to add:


It is worth pointing out at this stage that this defence of ordinary language is not being advanced dogmatically. Every user of the vernacular knows it to be true since they know that for each and every sexist, racist and ideologically-compromised sentence expressible in ordinary language there exists its negation.

This is why socialists can say such things as: "Blacks are not inferior"; "Human beings are not selfish"; "Wages are not fair", "Women are not objects", "Belief in the after-life is baseless" -- and still be understood, even by those still in thrall to such ideas, but who might still take an opposite view. If ordinary language were identical with 'commonsense' -- and if it were ideological (per se), in the way that some imagine -- you just could not say such things.

We all know this to be true -- certainly, socialists should know this --, because in our practical discourse we manage to deny such things every day.

BTB:


Whether I use the philosophy of Aquinas or the specialist language of sociobiology or the common language of an average sexist, to argue for the subordination of women, I am still making the same political and social point.

Once more, the philosophy of Aquinas cannot be expressed in ordinary language. I have explained in detail why not here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1924027&postcount=5

And at even more length here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm


I agree. However, as Marxists, we assume that all social relations under capitalism are alienated, therefore how can ordinary language escape this any more than philosophical language? Also, it is not just language which is a social relation but meaning also. Therefore how can we assume that ordinary language is intrinsically more meaningful than other, more specialised modes of expression, which are themselves also products of social relations?

Certainly alienated concepts can seep into ordinary language, but because we have the negative particle in the vernacular we can say things like: "There is no god", "Wages aren't fair", "The police aren't there to protect us", and so on.


Also, isn't it the case that ordinary language use itself mystifies the world? For instance, we talk about the sun 'rising' and 'setting' and whilst this appears to be a common sense depiction, it actually misleads us about the actual relation between the motion of the Sun and the Earth. This, of course, is why Marx argues we need science.

But you can also say in ordinary language "The sun does not rise, or set".

Moreover, as physicists will tell you, relativity theory has made this old way or seeing things respectable again. As I put things in Essay Three Part Two:


It could be objected here that, for example, modern post-Copernican science has in fact contradicted Aristotelian ideas about the immobility of the earth. Of course, that is itself a controversial interpretation of the relationship between modern and ancient scientific theories -– and one that is not obviously correct. [I will explain why this is so in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

[TOR = Theory of Relativity.]

Anyway, and despite this, one clear consequence of the TOR is that, with a suitable change of reference frame, it is possible to picture the Earth as stationary and the Sun (etc.) in motion relative to it. That done, the alleged 'contradiction' disappears. In that case, the only necessary 'correction' to Aristotelian/Ptolemaic Physics (in this respect) would involve the abandonment of the idea that the earth is situated in a unique frame of reference -– but science itself can neither confirm nor deny that particular metaphysical assumption.

On this, Robert Mills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(physicist)) had this comment to make:


"Another way of stating the principle of equivalence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle), a way that better reflects its name, is to say that all reference frames, including accelerated reference frames, are equivalent, that the laws of Physics take the same form in any reference frame…. And it is also correct to say that the Copernican view (with the sun at the centre) and the Ptolemaic view (with the earth at the centre) are equally valid and equally consistent!" [Mills (1994), pp.182-83. Spelling altered to conform to UK English.]

[It is worth recalling that the late Professor Mills was co-inventor of Yang-Mills Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang%E2%80%93Mills_theory) in Gauge Quantum Mechanics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_theory), and was thus no scientific novice.]

And this is what Fred Hoyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle) had to say:


"Instead of adding further support to the heliocentric picture of the planetary motions the Einstein theory goes in the opposite direction, giving increased respectability to the geocentric picture. The relation of the two pictures is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view....

"Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is 'right' and the Ptolemaic theory 'wrong' in any meaningful physical sense...." [Hoyle (1973), pp.78-79.]

"We now know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance. But such an understanding had to await Einstein's theory of gravitation in order to be fully clarified." [Hoyle (1975), p.416.]

Similarly, Max Born (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Born) commented:


"Thus from Einstein's point of view Ptolemy and Copernicus are equally right. What point of view is chosen is a matter of expediency. For the mechanics of the planetary system the view of Copernicus is certainly the more convenient. But it is meaningless to call the gravitational fields that occur when a different system of reference is chosen 'fictitious' in contrast with the 'real' fields produced by near masses: it is just as meaningless as the question of the 'real' length of a rod...in the special theory of relativity. A gravitational field is neither 'real' nor 'fictitious' in itself. It has no meaning at all independent of the choice of coordinates, just as in the case of the length of a rod." [Born (1965), p.345. I owe this reference to Rosser (1967).]

You can find the references (and more details) here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_02.htm

But, whatever the physicists finally decide, this will have no impact at all on ordinary language.

Finally,'common sense' has nothing to do with ordinary language.

I'll be happy to explain why if asked.

[Hit The North]

Rosa, why doesn't 'common sense' have anything to do with 'ordinary language'?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Rosa, why doesn't 'common sense' have anything to do with 'ordinary language'?

First of all, I dispute there is any such thing as 'commonsense', as it is depicted by theorists and philosophers. There are as many 'definitions' of it as there are those wishing to define it. Hence, for something supposedly 'common' there is little common in anyone's understanding of it.



This is what I have posted here before, in another thread:


Philosophers and scientists frequently confuse ordinary language with 'commonsense'. With respect to the alleged 'contradiction' between appearance and reality -- occasioned by modern theories that the earth moves, for instance -- such thinkers have in mind perhaps the supposed link between certain "folk" theories (i.e., theories that hold that the Earth is stationary while the Sun moves) and everyday language. In that case, it is this incongruity, for instance, which is connected with the use of word like "sunrise", when in fact it does not actually rise. This is supposed to demonstrate the fact that ordinary language still contains concepts derived from defunct metaphysical, religious and/or quasi-scientific theories, which in turn is taken to mean that the vernacular is defective.

However, even if such inferences and links were part of the 'commonsense view', that would not imply that the vernacular depended upon or encapsulated outmoded scientific or metaphysical theories. This can be seen from the fact that all of us (scientists included) still employ terms like "sunrise" despite our assenting to modern theories of the Universe. We are not to suppose that when scientists use the word "sunrise" they do so ironically or thoughtlessly.

Moreover, unless scientists and philosophers used and already understood terms taken from ordinary language, they could scarcely begin to correct 'commonsense' -– always assuming that the latter needed correcting, or even that this is what scientists or philosophers in fact do.

However, a much more revealing fact about ordinary language -– and one easily missed -- is that we can readily form the negations of sentences that contain such allegedly obsolete notions (like the daily ascent of the Sun). Consider, for example, the following:

S1: The Sun rises in the morning.

S2: It is not the case that the Sun rises in the morning.

The facility we have in ordinary language of being able to negate every indicative empirical sentence demonstrates that the vernacular is neither a theory nor is it dependent upon one. This is because no viable theory could countenance the negation of all its empirical propositions, as ordinary language readily does.

Returning to the case in point, the view defended here means that the word "sunrise" is no more problematic than words such as "nightfall" and "daybreak". No one imagines that the use of "nightfall" commits anyone to a "folk theory" of the susceptibilities of darkness to the law of gravity, or that "daybreak" suggests that mornings are brittle.

Indeed, and to change the example, no one (certainly no scientist) believes that when someone catches the 'flu (or influenza) there is some sort of cosmic influence at work, even though as matter of fact the original use of this scientific word (taken from the medieval Latin, influentia) was based on an ancient mystical theory about there being just such stellar influences. Still less would anyone be eager to accept the idea that when someone is described as "hysterical" this means that that person has a wandering womb (even though that particular idea used to be based on a former 'scientific' belief that wombs could wander -- from the Greek: hysteria or 'womb'). Nor do psychologists now think that "lunatics" are sensitive to phases of the Moon, or even that phlegmatic individuals have a superabundance of phlegm, and so on. In fact, if the term "Big Bang" were to be understood as literally as certain critics of 'commonsense' read "sunrise", we should be committed to the view that the origin of the Universe was rather loud, and was witnessed by sentient life.

In addition, it is worth noting that many currently used scientific terms are themselves derived from ancient and/or odd uses of certain words. For example: "Oxygen" (derived from the original Greek meaning "acid"); "Quark" (coined by Murray Gell-Mann from Finnegans Wake); "Law" (derived from Jurisprudence); "Atom" (meaning "indivisible"); "Acid" (meaning "sour" or "sharp to the taste"); "Alkali" (Arabic, "the ashes of a plant"); "Algebra" (Arabic, "the reduction"); "Alcohol" (Arabic, al-kuhul, powdered antimony, or eye-makeup), "Flow" (from Old High German flouwen, "to rinse"); "Force" (Latin, "strong"); "Root", in Mathematics (part of a plant); "Matrix" (Latin, "mother", or "womb"); "Vector" (Latin vehere, "to carry"); "Missing Link" (from the ancient Greek 'Great Chain of Being'), "Planet" (Late Latin planeta, or "wanderer"), "vaccine" (from vacca, cow), and so on.

Moreover, the idea that words encapsulate ancient or defunct theories appears to commit those who accept it to the view that 'meanings' follow words about as if attached to them by some sort of 'semantic adhesive', and that once a word has gained a meaning it will always mean, or connote the same no matter what. But, that would imply that words were quasi-intelligent beings whose denotations and connotations are hard-wired into their 'memory', which cannot be altered by subsequent users.

Howsoever these metaphors are interpreted, they imply that anyone who uses such words must have their meanings dictated to them by those words themselves, or that language-users somehow 'catch' the meaning of these words when young, rather like the way that they might pick up a virus from their parents or siblings.

[The recent infatuation with Richard Dawkins's 'memes' also trades on this same fetishised myth.]

In this case, something analogous to a foreign body will have taken such users over, running their brains and governing their speech. Learning a language would thus be more like contracting a disease or being possessed, but it would not be a socially-acquired skill. Hence, the claim that words still carry their ancient meanings about with them would amount to their fetishisation -- in effect animating material signs.

Meaning in language would not then be a function of the communal life, social interaction or material existence of human beings; it would be a function of the social life of words and meanings.

This, of course, fetishes words, turning them into agents and human beings into their playthings.

'Commonsense' is often confused with ordinary language. Unfortunately, the term "commonsense" is rather vague. Bertrand Russell once claimed it encapsulated the "metaphysics of cavemen", but even he would have been hard-pressed to say what it was, let alone how he knew so much about it.

The majority of commentators seem to think this word relates to a body pf commonly held beliefs, when, by way of contrast, in ordinary use it appears in sentences like the following:

C1: "Use your common sense! Don't put your hand in the lion's cage!"

C2: "Have you no common sense? What on earth made you try to debate with a Nazi?"

C3: "It's just common sense. No one in their right mind would rummage around in a waste disposal unit while it is switched on."

Admittedly, the above depend to some extent on certain beliefs held about ourselves and the world around us, but the difficulty computer programmers have in reproducing human behaviour shows that this is not just a matter of holding certain beliefs. Indeed, human beings can be well aware of certain facts, and still act in a way that will prompt the above comments. I am sure we have all met such individuals.

To be sure, politicians will use the word "commonsense" to defend all manner of right-wing, reactionary and populist ideas, but then they will say anything. The ideological use of this word will be examined below.

So, if the word has any clear meaning, it appears to denote an inchoate (but changing) set of beliefs and opinions that most (all?) human beings are supposed to possess (whether they are conscious of them or not). But, if this were so, it would imply that these beliefs must have been communicated telepathically from individual to individual, one generation and one community to the next, across the planet and down the centuries. How else are we to account for the alleged universality of 'commonsense'? And yet, at no point in life has a single human being ever been tutored in 'commonsense'; no one runs through the list of its canonical ideas at school, at their parents' knees or even behind the bike sheds with their friends. Nobody studies 'commonsense' at college, nor do they take tests in it or receive a diploma proving their competence.

Of course, if this is indeed so, we should perhaps stop calling it "common".

One thing is clear therefore about 'commonsense': it cannot be all that common or we would all be experts at identifying its core ideas and saying where they have come from, but nobody seems able to do so.

If 'commonsense' beliefs were culturally 'relative', each generation would possess a different, or slightly different, set of 'commonsense' beliefs -- even if there was some overlap here and there. In that case, of course, there would be no such thing as 'commonsense'. It would still be a mystery, however, how such beliefs could be passed on if no one knows what they were.

It could be argued that this might occur at a non-conscious level, as attitudes and 'values' are passed down the generations, or as they are randomly acquired during a lifetime.

Now, even if that were so (but the idea will be questioned in one of my Essays), it would still be unclear exactly what was being 'passed on'. Indeed, no one, researchers and subjects alike, seems capable of saying what this is (over and above mentioning parts of the vague list mentioned earlier). This then would be the first area of scientific research where no one knew what they were attempting to study!

And it's no use doing a survey; either the survey questions will bias the result, or the questions will be too vague to be of any use.

Moreover, if 'commonsense' is encapsulated in ordinary language, it is remarkably well hidden, for, as noted above, no one seems to be able to list its main precepts. In that case, no society in history could possibly have agreed over what should be included in 'commonsense', and what should be left out. Hence, the idea that 'commonsense' today is the same as it was ten thousand years ago (or even last week), and identical across cultures, if correct, must be one of the best kept secrets in history. If no one ever talks about it and no one knows what it includes, it is no surprise that it's a complete mystery how it is disseminated within populations, or how one generation passes 'commonsense' on to the next.

Is it in the water? Is it genetically encoded?

But if that were the case, we would all possess the same set of 'commonsense' beliefs; but we do not, apparently.

Or, rather, no one is able to say whether we do or we do not share the same set, since no one is capable of listing the 'commonsense' beliefs held by everyone -- or indeed anyone. Still less is it clear how 'commonsense' beliefs may be distinguished from merely widely held beliefs.

For example, is it a 'commonsense' belief that dogs have four legs, or a widely held belief? What about the belief that grass is green or that the sky is up? And how could one test any of these without biasing the result?

Typically, the sorts of beliefs some associate with 'commonsense' include ideological, metaphysical, religious, 'folk', mystical and superstitious notions, and the like. But, this list of likely candidates varies according to who is telling the tale.

In that case, one is tempted to say that the idea that there is such a thing as 'commonsense' must be a "scientistic folk belief" itself, since it is not based on any clear evidence --, at least none that is not 'tainted' with the sorts of ideas many would include in 'commonsense', too.



However, since nobody appears to know which beliefs are on the favoured list, and which aren't, the word itself is something of a misnomer. If 'commonsense' had have lived up to its name (at least), we would all be much clearer about its content; it would, after all, be eminently [I]common.

Even so, almost invariably the relationship between 'commonsense' and ordinary language is assumed to be reasonably straightforward; indeed, the latter is supposed to contain or express the former. So clear is this link imagined to be, and so universally is this belief itself held, that no one (literally no one (!) -- as far as I have been able to ascertain) questions it. [B]Even Wittgenstein made this mistake!

But, while no competent language-user is in much doubt about his or her own language, no living soul seems to be able to say what 'commonsense' is. Even though not all of us have a mastery of speech equal to that of its most accomplished practitioners, no one (novice or adept alike) seems to know what 'commonsense' is. This is quite remarkable if the two are as intimately connected as we have been led to believe.

The case for identifying the two is no less questionable. As noted above, ordinary language is supposed to contain or to express 'commonsense' ideas. However, when pressed to supply details those wishing to lump the two together are often reduced to making a few vague references to things like sunrise, solid objects, colour vision, the possession of two hands, an imprecise collection of psychological or 'mental' dispositions and/or 'processes', an assortment of perceptual conundrums, a handful of proverbs and 'wise' sayings, a few vague moral, political and ideological inanities, as well as the odd superstition or two.

In fact, the haste to identify the two is not just unwise, it is ideologically-motivated (as will be demonstrated in Essay Twelve at my site, summary here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)).

On the other hand, had more than a moment's thought been devoted to this pseudo-identity, its absurdity would have been immediately obvious: if ordinary language were identical with 'commonsense', it would be impossible to gainsay any of its alleged deliverances in the vernacular.

The plain fact is we can. And easily.

Not only are we able to deny that tables are solid, that the sky is blue, that the earth is flat, round or cucumber-shaped, that NN believes (for most p) that p, that sticks do not bend in water, that Queen Elizabeth II is sovereign in Parliament, that water falls off a duck's back, that Rome was built in a day, that an apple a day will tend to deter a doctor's visits, that φ-ing is wrong (for any conventional φ), that Capitalism is fair, that human beings are 'naturally' selfish, we can do all of these in every known language that possesses the relevant vocabulary. That, of course, is the whole point of the negative particle. If ordinary language were identical with 'commonsense', none of this would be possible.

[The Greek letter "φ" is a variable used in Analytic Philosophy, and is meant to be replaceable by certain verb phrases, such as "walk", "talk", "tell lies", "refute dialectical materialism", and so on.]

To be sure, many of the beliefs entertained by our ancestors we no longer accept, but as far as the connection between 'commonsense' and the vernacular is concerned, sentences drawn from it gain their sense because of the conventions set by social practices. Although we can express our beliefs in ordinary language, the sense of a sentence does not arise from any of the beliefs we possess, nor from any we have inherited from the past. This is because beliefs themselves are dependent on language and thus on our capacity to articulate them accordingly. And we can be sure of that fact if language is social, otherwise beliefs could not be communicated, let alone formed.

Just as social practices themselves cannot be altered individualistically (any more than the value of money can), the conventions underpinning language cannot be revised at will by any one individual or group (except perhaps at the margins). The conventions we have at any point in time of course change and grow in accord with social development. They are, at basis, an expression of our "species being" and are intimately connected with our relationship with the world, with one another and with previous generations.

Hence, just as it would it be impossible for an individual to bury, hide or incorporate a set of beliefs in ordinary language in order to form the backbone of 'commonsense', it would be equally impossible for a group to do so.

In that case, it really isn't up to a revolutionary, or party of revolutionaries (or anyone else, for that matter), to disparage such a vitally important expression of our collective (but changing) nature as human beings -- the vernacular. Whether they do so or not is plainly up to them; the 'penalty' (if such it may be called) for attempting to do this is not always immediately obvious. However, anyone who does try to undermine the vernacular will soon find their ideas descending into incoherence (as was demonstrated in an earlier thread with the word "change", and will be again in other Essays posted at my site in relation to other words). In that sense, attacking the vernacular is not a viable option, since such a strategy would automatically disintegrate.

Hence, ordinary language is not the same as 'commonsense'.

[Apoi_Viitor]

By distorting ordinary language, philosophers have created a series of problems that they deem need to be solved. The way in which they distort language is by first claiming that words obtain their meaning, not through human interaction, but by being names that correspond to something real in the world. (Edit: As Rosa noted this is unclear. I left out that if there is not something in the real world they correspond to, then they are called various things such as absractions and forms. These are treated as the basic elements of the ideal world that they create that are accessible to thought alone) Now if this is the case, then all words are the name of the thing they correspond with; they all function as nouns. Thus, you get questions of our Being, the good, reality, etc. None of these words make any sense in ordinary language, since they are used as nouns when they are in reality verbs or adjectives. Now last time I checked, verbs and adjectives were not objects, but actions and descriptions. Thus, they are being used out of their ordinary sense.

Can you elaborate on this?

[syndicat]

i think it's an important thing to keep in mind because it encourages a more democratic rhetoric, that is, style of conversing and persuading and writing, etc. if you look at the post-modernist trend that got going back in the '80s and '90s for example, there was a huge reliance on oscure jargon and neologisms. it entrenches the position of those "in the know".

for descriptive language there is a critical mass of actual uses by people that keep the reference of the nouns and verbs tracking to certain things the community of users have an interest in being able to talk about or features or activities they want to attribute to people or whatever.

specialized terminology is typically introduced in some set of the population, such as people who work in a particular field, or hobbyists or athletes or whatever. but the terminology can be explained in terms of the language of the larger language community.

[ZeroNowhere]

Can you elaborate on this?They are probably referring to things such as Plato's Form of the Good, and indeed the general idea that there are Forms of abstract concepts which do not exist in material form anywhere; so, for example, there is no 'beauty' object in our world, but according to Plato's Socrates all of the many beautiful objects are only forms of appearance of the true Form of Beauty. He bases his claim that the common man cannot do philosophy on the fact that most people will not admit to this distinction between Beauty as an entity and the many beautiful things, but will rather say that there are only many beautiful things. I'm not sure that philosophers with similar conceptions have generally called them 'abstractions', though, inasmuch as this would seem to undermine the whole idea, as they are trying to posit a category as a specific object, and hence exactly not as an abstraction.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Z: In fact, the problem goes deeper, and does not relate solely to so-called abstractions.

Here is an outline of the point again:


Consider a typical philosophical/metaphysical thesis:

M1: To be is to be perceived.

Contrast this with a typical empirical proposition:

M2: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

The seemingly profound nature of theses like M1 is linked to rather more mundane features of the language in which they are expressed: that is, to the fact that the main verb they use is almost invariably in the indicative (http://www.lousywriter.com/verbs_indicative_mood.php) mood.

[Sometimes, the latter is beefed-up with subjunctive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood) and/or modal qualifying terms (such as 'must', 'necessary', etc.) -- which, incidentally, helps create even more of a false impression.]

Now, this apparently superficial grammatical facade hides a deeper logical form -- several in fact. This is something which only becomes plain when such sentences are examined more closely.

As noted above, expressions like these look as if they reveal deep truths about reality since they certainly resemble empirical propositions (i.e., propositions about matters of fact). In the event, they turn out to be nothing at all like them.

To see this, consider again an ordinary empirical proposition:

T1: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

Compare this with these similar-looking indicative (but nonetheless typical metaphysical) sentences:

T2: Time is a relation between events.

T3: Motion is inseparable from matter.

In order to understand T1, it is not necessary to know whether it is true or not.

However, the comprehension of T2 and T3 goes hand-in-hand with knowing either or both are true (or, conversely, knowing either or both are false). The truth of T2 and T3 thus follows from the meaning of certain words (or from certain definitions -- i.e., from yet more words).

no evidence is needed.]

This now intimately links the truth status of T2 and T3 with meaning, but not with material confirmation/facts, and hence not with a confrontation with reality. Their truth-status is independent of and anterior to the evidence (even if there were any!).

In contrast, understanding T1 is independent of its confirmation or refutation -- indeed, it would be impossible to do either if T1 had not already been understood. However, the truth/falsehood of T1-type propositions follows from the way the world is, not solely from meaning.

Empirical propositions are typically like this; they have to be understood first before they can be confronted with the evidence that would establish their truth-status. In contrast, metaphysical propositions carry their truth/falsehood on their faces, as it were, and need no evidence to confirm their truth or their falsehood.

So here we have two sorts of indicative sentences, each with a radically different 'relation' to 'reality'.

Understanding the first sort (i.e., those like T1) is independent of their truth-status, whereas their actual truth or falsehood depends on the state of the world.

In the second (i.e., those like T2 or T3), their truth or falsehood is not dependent on the state of the world, but follows solely from the meaning of the words they contain (or on those in the argument from which they were 'derived'). To understand them is ipso facto to know they are true.

Indeed, metaphysical theses (like T2 and T3) are deliberately constructed to transcend the limitations of the material world, which tactic is excused on the grounds that it allows the aspiring metaphysician to uncover "underlying essences", revealing nature's "hidden secrets". Theses like these are "necessarily true" (or "necessarily false"), and are thus held to express genuine knowledge of fundamental aspects of reality, unlike contingent/empirical propositions whose actual truth-status can alter with the wind.

Traditionally, this meant that empirical propositions like T1 were considered to be incapable of revealing authentic knowledge. Indeed, "philosophical knowledge" (underlying absolute certainty) has always been held to be of the sort delivered by T2- or T3-type sentences: necessary, a priori, non-contingent, and generated by thought alone.

Metaphysical propositions thus masquerade as especially profound super-empirical truths which cannot fail to be true (or cannot fail to be false, as the case may be). They do this by aping the indicative mood --, but they go way beyond this. Thus, what they say does not just happen to be this way or that, as is the case with ordinary empirical truths -- these propositions cannot be otherwise. The world must conform to whatever they say. Indeed, this accounts for the use of modal terms (like "must", "necessary" and "inconceivable") if and when their status is questioned --, or, of course, whenever their content is being sold to us -- as in "I must exist if I can think", or "Existence can't be a predicate".

Conversely, if anyone were to question the truth of T1, the following response: "Tony Blair must own a copy of Das Kapital" would be highly inappropriate -- unless, perhaps, T1 itself were the conclusion of an inference, such as: "Tony Blair told me he owned a copy, so he must own one", or it was based on a direct observation statement. But even then, the truth or falsehood of T1 would depend on an interface with material reality at some point.

In the latter case, with empirical propositions, reality dictates to us whether what we say is true or false. We would not be dictating to reality what it must contain, or what it must be like, as metaphysical theses have always done.

Hence, with respect to T2 and T3, things are radically different; the second option above applies, for their truth-values (true or false) can be determined independently, and in advance of the way the world happens to be. Here, the 'essential' nature of reality can be ascertained from words/thought alone. Such Super-Truths (or Super-Falsehoods) can be derived solely from the alleged meaning of the words sentences like T2 and T3 contain (or from the 'concepts' they somehow express). In that case, once understood, metaphysical propositions like T2 and T3 guarantee their own truth or their own falsehood. They are thus true a priori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori).

So, to understand a metaphysical thesis is to know it is true or to know it is false. That is why, to their inventors, metaphysical propositions appear to be so certain and self-evident. Questioning them seems to run against the grain of our understanding, not of our experience. Indeed, they appear to be self-evident precisely because they need no evidence to confirm their truth-status; they provide their own 'evidence', and testify on their own behalf. Their veracity follows from the alleged meaning of the words they contain. They, not the world, guarantee their own truth (or falsehood).

Unfortunately, this divorces such theses from material reality, since they are true or false independently of any apparent state of the world.

In that case, any thesis that can be judged true or false on conceptual grounds alone cannot feature in a materialist account of reality, only an Idealist one.

This might seem to be a somewhat dogmatic statement to make, but as we shall see, the opposite view is the one that is dogmatic, since it is based on a ruling-class view of reality (and on one whose validity is not sensitive to empirical test), which collapses into incoherence when examined closely.

The paradoxical nature metaphysical theses illustrates the ineluctable slide into non-sense that all philosophical theories undergo whenever their proponents try to undermine either the vernacular or the logical and pragmatic principles on which it is based -- those which, for example, ordinary speakers regularly use to state contingent truths or falsehoods about the world without such a fuss.

Intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such putatively empirical, but nonetheless metaphysical, sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical proposition is declared to be only true or only false (or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other) -- as a "law of cognition", perhaps -- or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical thesis.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both semantic options, and with that goes any sense that the original proposition might have had, rendering it incomprehensible.

This is because empirical propositions leave it open as to whether they are true or false; that is why their truth-values (true/false) cannot simply be read-off from their content, why evidence is required in order to determine their semantic status, and why it is possible to understand them before their truth or falsehood is known. If that were not so, it would be impossible to ascertain their truth-status; it is not possible to verify/falsify an alleged proposition if no one understands it.

When this is not the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, or when propositions are said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant. Thus, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition cannot be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or semantic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such linguistic/structural factors, that proposition cannot be empirical.

If, however, such propositions are still regarded by those who propose them as truths, or Super-truths, about the world, about its "essence", then they are plainly metaphysical.

Otherwise the truth or falsehood of such propositions would be world-sensitive, not solely meaning- or concept-dependent. And that explains why the comprehension of metaphysical propositions appears to go hand in hand with knowing their 'truth' (or their 'falsehood'): they are based on features of thought/language, not on the material world.

This means that they can't be related to the material world or anything in it, and hence they can't be used to help change it.

Of course, it could always be claimed that such 'essentialist' thoughts 'reflect' the world.

But, if thought 'reflects' the world, it would be possible to understand a proposition that allegedly expressed such a reflected thesis in advance of knowing whether it was true or false, otherwise confirmation in practice, or by comparing it with the world, would become an empty gesture. But this is not so with such philosophical, 'reflected' theses.

On the other hand, if their truth or their falsehood can be ascertained from such propositions/'thoughts' alone (i.e., if they are "self-evident"), then plainly the world drops out of the picture.

Naturally, this just means that such 'thoughts'/propositions cannot be reflections of the world, whatever else they are.

Another odd feature of metaphysical theses is also worth underlining: since the truth-values of defective sentences like these are plainly not determined by the world, they have to be given a truth-value by fiat. That is, they have to be declared "necessarily true" or "necessarily false", and this is plainly because their truth-status cannot be derived from the world, with which they cannot now be compared.

Or, more grandiloquently, their opposites have to be pronounced "unthinkable" by a sage-like figure -- a Philosopher of some sort.

Metaphysical decrees like this are as common as dirt in traditional thought.

Isolated theses like these have necessary truth or falsehood bestowed on them as a gift. Instead of being compared with material reality to ascertain their truth-status, they are derived solely from, or compared only with other related theses (or to be more honest, they are merely compared with yet more obscure jargon) as part of a terminological gesture at 'verification'. Their bona fides are thus thoroughly Ideal and 100% bogus. 'Confirmation' takes place only in the head of the theorist who dreamt them up.

The normal cannons that determine when something is true or false (i.e., a comparison with reality) have thus to be set aside, and a spurious 'evidential' ceremony substituted for it -- or, if it is carried out in advance, it is performed in the head as a sort of 'thought experiment', or perhaps as part of a very hasty and superficial consideration of the 'concepts' involved.

As far as traditional Philosophy (Metaphysics) is concerned, we know this is precisely what happened as the subject developed; philosophers simply invented more and more jargonised words, juggled with bogus terminology, and thereby derived countless 'truths' from thought/language alone.

But, none of these 'truths' can be given a sense, no matter what is done with them; in that case, they are all non-sensical.

These ideas are worked out in extensive detail, and defended in depth here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

This, of course, illustrates why Marx said:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels, (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold added.]

Now, there is a reason why traditional theorists attempted to derive 'truths' from thought alone. I have already summarised this reason; here it is again:


This traditional way of seeing reality taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who have always viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for each ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

And this is why all of traditional philosophy is dogmatic, and thus non-sensical.

Now the reason why this traditional approach to 'philosophical truth' has dominated 'western' (and 'eastern') thought for 2500 years was outlined by Marx, too:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Ibid., pp.64-65.]

The reason why such 'necessary truths' (and 'necessary falsehoods') decay into non-sense is connected with the following considerations:

So, to recap: an empirical proposition derives its sense from the truth possibilities it appears to hold open (which options will later be decided upon one way or the other by a confrontation with the material world). That is why the actual truth-value of, say, T1 (or its contradictory, T2) does not need to be known before it is understood, but it is also why evidence is relevant to establishing that truth-value.

T1: Tony Blair owns a copy of Das Kapital.

T2: Tony Blair does not own a copy of Das Kapital.

All that is required here is some grasp of the possibilities that both of these propositions hold open. T1 and T2 both have the same content, and are both made true or false by the same situation obtaining or not.

It is also why it is easy to imagine T1 to be true even if it is false, or false even if it is true. In general, comprehension of empirical propositions involves an understanding of the conditions under which they would/could be true or false; as is well-known, these are otherwise called their "truth-conditions". That, of course, allows anyone so minded to confirm their actual truth status by comparison with the world, since they would in that case know what to look for/expect.

As we saw earlier, these non-negotiable facts about language underpin the Marxist emphasis on the social -- and hence the communal and communicational -- nature of discourse, but they fly in the face of metaphysical and representational theories, which emphasise the opposite: that to understand a proposition goes hand-in-hand with automatically knowing it is true (or knowing it is false) -- by-passing the confirmation/disconfirmation stage (thus reducing the usual 'truth-conditions' to only one option).

However, there are other serious problems this approach to language faces over and above the fact it would make knowledge un-communicable, and thus impossible.

Intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such putatively empirical, but nonetheless metaphysical, sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical proposition is declared to be only true or only false (or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other) -- as a "law of cognition", perhaps -- or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical thesis.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both semantic options, and with that goes any sense that the original proposition might have had, rendering it incomprehensible.

This is because, as noted above, empirical propositions leave it open as to whether they are true or false; that is why their truth-values cannot simply be read-off from their content, why evidence is required in order to determine their semantic status, and why it is possible to understand them before their truth or falsehood is known. If that were not so, it would be impossible to ascertain their truth-status, as we have seen.

When this is not the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, when propositions are said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant. Thus, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition cannot be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or syntactic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such structural factors, that proposition cannot be empirical.

Furthermore, and worse, if a proposition is purported to be empirical, and yet it can only be false (as seems to be the case with, say, T3, below, according to Lenin) then, as we will see, paradox must ensue.

Consider the following sentences, the first of which Engels and Lenin would presumably have declared necessarily false (if not "unthinkable"):

T3: Motion sometimes occurs without matter.

T4: Motion without matter is unthinkable.

Unfortunately for Lenin, in order to declare T3 necessarily (and always) false, the possibility of its truth must first be entertained. Lenin has to think the offending words, "matter without motion".

If now the truth of T3 is to be permanently excluded by holding it as necessarily false (or 'unthinkable'), then whatever would make it true has to be ruled out conclusively. But, anyone doing that would have to know what T3 rules in (what makes it true) so that he/she could comprehend what it is that is being disqualified by its rejection as always and necessarily false. And yet, this is precisely what cannot be done if what T3 itself says is permanently ruled out on semantic/conceptual grounds.

Consequently, if a proposition like T3 is declared necessarily false this charade (i.e., the permanent exclusion of its truth) cannot take place -- since it would be impossible to say (or to think) what could count as making T3 true. Indeed, Lenin himself had to declare it "unthinkable" (in T4).

However, because the truth of the original proposition (T4) cannot even be conceived, Lenin was thus in no position to say what was excluded by its rejection.

Unfortunately, this now prevents any account being given of what would make T3 false, let alone 'necessarily' false. Given this twist, paradoxically, T3 would now be necessarily false if and only if it was not capable of being thought of as necessarily false!

That is: T3 could be thought of as necessarily false if and only if what would make it true could at least be entertained just in order to rule that out as necessarily false. But, according to Lenin, the conditions that would make T3 true cannot even be conceived, so this train of thought cannot be joined at any point. And, if the truth of T3 -- or the conditions under which it would be true -- cannot be conceived, then neither can its falsehood, for we would then not know what was being ruled out.

In that case, the negation of T3 can neither be accepted nor rejected by anyone, for no one would know what its content committed them to so that it could be either countenanced or repudiated. Hence, T3 would lose any sense it had, since it could not under any circumstances be either true or false.

This is in fact just another consequence of saying that an empirical proposition and its negation have the same content. If one option is ruled out, the other goes out of the window with it.

It is also connected with the non-sensicality of all metaphysical 'propositions', for their negations do not have the same content as the original non-negated 'proposition'.

["Proposition" is in 'scare quotes' here, since if it's not clear what is being proposed, then plainly nothing has yet been proposed.]

Indeed, because their negations do not picture anything that could be the case in any possible world, they have no content at all. That, of course, evacuates the content of the original non-negated proposition.

As we can now see, the radical misuse of language governing the formation of what look like empirical propositions (such as T3, or T4):

T4: Motion without matter is unthinkable.

T3: Motion sometimes occurs without matter.

T5: Motion never occurs without matter.

involves an implicit reference to the sorts of conditions that that underlie their normal employment/reception.

Hence, when such sentences are entertained, a pretence (often genuine) has to be maintained that they actually mean something, that they are capable of being understood. This is done even if certain restrictions are later placed on what they seem to imply -- as in T4. In that case, a pretence has to be maintained that we understand what might make such propositions true, and their 'negations' false, so that those like T3 can be declared 'necessarily' false or "unthinkable".

But, this entire exercise is an empty charade, for no content can be given to propositions like T3 (and thus to T4, nor in fact to any metaphysical 'proposition').

With respect to motionless matter, even Lenin had to admit that!

Indeed, he it was who told us this 'idea' was "unthinkable".

More details here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

The same argument applies to all the 'necessary truths' that have been concocted by philosophers since Anaximander (http://www.iep.utm.edu/anaximan/) was a lad.

[This does not imply they all used the phrase 'necessary truth', but the theses they cobbled-together weren't materially different from such 'super-truths'.]

Since allegedly 'necessary truths' are in fact misconstrued rules of language (we can see that from the way their 'truth' allegedly fallows from the way certain words are used), if they are deemed 'false', then the meaning of the terms involved must change, and when that happens the proposition involved no longer has the same content as the original.

Hence: since 'necessary propositions' cannot be false, they cannot be true either.

And, as I pointed out, this is no surprise: 'necessary propositions' are misconstrued rules for the use of certain words, and rules can be neither true nor false, only obeyed or otherwise, practical or otherwise...

And that is why the theses traditional philosophers have concocted cannot be compared with reality -- they make no sense at all, having been based on a distortion of ordinary language.

There is more to it than this, but the above should suffice.