There Is No Such Thing as Original Meaning

(sent to conlaw prof re: the "original meaning" of the equal protection clause)

One who says that Brown violates the "original meaning" of the sentence, "No State shall deny ... equal protection," says, in essence, that the sentence is a code of some sort. That it has some sort of secret language or something. Like you have to go into the temple to see what it really says. (It reminds me of Wittgenstein's comments about private languages).

In fact, the sentence doesn't need much deciphering as an English sentence at all -- worst case, it's a little poetic. It might be similar to the way one reads poetry when seeing it. It means to give people certain things and to provide an even-handed sort of thing.

But the point is that the meaning of the sentence is NOT determined by how post-Civil War culture behaved. That is a CONSTRUCTION. That is only an interpretation of the meaning, not the meaning itself. There are many possible behaviors that conform. That would be like saying that when Socrates first used the term Good, that we are forever bound by that implementation. The phrase "equal protection" means a family of things and has many accompanying behaviors. You cannot utter something flowery and have it mean only what the first behavioral output is. Language doesn't work that way.  If you want to regiment with language, you need rigid designators and complicated sentences. There is no such thing as an original meaning of a word that asks a person to use judgment to "follow" it.  

Imagine the constitution saying, "you have the right to dance." If they dance a certain way in 1787, is that the "original meaning" of the term? It is not, because language is not a picture. It doesn't work that way.

What I think you mean to say is that Brown is not obedient to the original racial ideology that prevailed in the mid 1800s. This is about politics, not language.    
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
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Thoughts on Faculty "Education"

It seems as though there are several sorts of faculty "profiles" or strategies in college these days. There is the option of doing nothing but presenting something in the nature of standardized ABC's -- the basic trivia of a subject. This approach might rely heavily upon a textbook. And there are those who rely heavily upon a pleasant sort of entertainment for students -- be it in their personality (interaction, arranging for talk) or in some sort of creative educational agenda (simulations and so forth). This approach uses entertainment and some kind of social psychology I think. And there are those who rely heavily on task assignments. They like to have kids doing small projects that they can manage and oversee (while they are away doing research). This approach is least labor-intensive from the standpoint of really wanting to prepare something in the class.

But there is a final pedagogy. And it says that what young minds must develop in college is not ABC's, skills such as how to use the library, or to feel the experience of "fun" in class. Rather, it is to inculcate the intellect with, shall we say, "voices." That it is to plant things in the mind that either grow or get stored somewhere, where they might later grow.

Of course, the truth is that many will not do anything with these seeds. They'll occupy the mind like other articles of junk. But still, with many (more?), these voices will stay throughout the life, either to be voiced away by the greater experiences of life or to be summoned in the aid of insight -- but either way to be a frame of reference.

I note this because I think college professors are in trouble these days. Too many are not intellectually interesting. Too many are data wonks. Too many are baby sitters or entertainers. Too many teach ABC's. Too many are now being replaced by online instruction, which can deliver information about as good as the next. Very few, I think, try to impress upon curiosity the gift of insight. Very few love the idea for its own sake any more. They day the Greeks die in the academy is the day that all the institutions are worthless in Rome.

The False Mind Body Problem in Philosophy

(sent to analytic. The poster says that when two people disagree about whether a tree exists independently of a mind, it is a real problem for philosophy. I claim it is not. He says that if you do not directly confront the issue over whether tree is "real," you are only hiding the disagreement) 

Walter:

When you talk to an idealist using his/her language framework, you are not "hiding the disagreement." To the contrary, you are directly confronting it by showing the person that the redundancy they impose in speech ("phenomenal-phenomenal") is not consequential to anything. It's not consequential because the disagreement is only over how to characterize something, not the something itself.  (You say that I've said this and you disagree. But I can only say it again, because you don't appear to understand.) One who says tree versus "treeness" to describe something that in every respect appears as the same X before each brain in the discussion -- each being healthy and behaving the same toward the tree -- does nothing other than disagree about what to call their X. This is because he does not deny that "tree exists" is "true," where that merely means to his brain "ostensification confirmed;" he only means to speak of it in a different categorical
scheme ("treeness presents"). You are arguing only over the order of his housekeeping. It's like arguing whether to categorize in descending versus ascending order. You are only arguing only over his affiliation.

The only way a real dispute would exist is if he were to begin to treat the external world differently. If he were to try to will the tree away or try to run through it for example. Then, you have a real problem. But even here, the issue is not philosophical (one of disputation), its medical and therapeutic.   

The only other point I would make to you is that it matters least of all what people on this board think of Wittgenstein or about their profession when discussing this.  It also matters not that intellectual history saw philosophy take on a particular form. The question is only whether in a dispute such as this one should deploy a ritual of disputation that seeks to root for an affiliation. Do you realize that this is all you are doing -- rooting for the tree?

Why root for the tree, Walter, when you can root for the Steelers?  Just speak the man's redundancy and move on.  After being spoken to enough this way, he'll probably stop with this sort of languaging maneuver anyway.
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
New Website: http://seanwilson.org
Daily Visitors: http://seanwilson.org/homepagelucy.html
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860

Explaining Language Games and Grammar

(sent to analytic)

Stuart:

I have not said anything that controverted W's idea of "something being hidden." I have not spoken of the "thought of pain," for example.  The question is this: is the idea of "grammar" for Wittgensteinian-inspired folk: (a) an automation in the brain; (b) an autonomy in the brain (free-for-all); or (c) a anthropologic derivative used in a behavior.

The answer is clearly (c). Language is use, and use can be stupid.  

Larry's posts about the concept of language game imply a conception of grammar that is too normative (too automated).

Regards.   Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. Assistant ProfessorWright State UniversityNew Website: http://seanwilson.org/Daily Visitors: http://seanwilson.org/homepagelucy.htmlSSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860

What Kind of Judges We Want and Why the Academy Often Frustrates This

Hi Sandy.

Let's put the bone of contention here:  I don't care about prior judicial experience (Scott's post), I care about "intellectual experience" as that is scooped up and trained within legal education. And particularly, what legal education says and does to intellectualism generally. Therefore, what I care most ardently about is this growing idea among "experts" in various academic fields that seem to say that Constitutional decision making is or should be the same sort of cognitive task that one uses, for example, in writing opinion pieces for journalism. That it does not involve anything seriously analytic or anything internally important, and that it amounts, really, to nothing but the expression of a kind of passion -- one's "turn at the bat," so to speak.

Look, if you think that the cognitive traits used in constitutional judging are the same that bureaucrats and policy planners use when rule making in the basement of government, you are going to be a Posnerian and like, e.g., Stephen Breyer. (Whether Mario Cuomo could make a good Stephen Breyer is highly debatable. He's certainly not on the short list). But if you think that constitutional judging doesn't even involve this, but simply is the expression of value choices that those experienced in politics make, you are going to end up with a different work product. Your judges are going to be people like Sandra Day O'Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the jurisprudence is going to be sort of "feeling oriented." One wonders why Tip O'Neil or Plunkett of Tammany Hall would not be good high Court judges today under this sort of rationalization, while good Presidents would be people with great movie careers.

Look, we have this debate for the other institutions, too. We say, do we want a common-denominator, regular-people presidency (jacksonian, bush), or do we want refined best-and-brightest model (obama and kennedy)? Should the legislature be a politico or a trustee? Should the judge be the Solomon or the problem solver.  

What I think people fail to understand is that Americans don't want a British system. They don't want their constitution to become their Declaration of Independence. They want integrity in the program. They want judges, not politicians. And they want prudent and structured casuistry, not an opinion column. They want the answers to come from a repspectable intellectual constituence -- one they can learn in school and make sense of. They want a Dworkinian. That is, they want the same thing from their judges that they were supposed to get from their clergy, their referees, and their professors.

I think, today, only referees come close to actually doing this, and one wonders if even this is becoming culturally ill. And one wonders to what extent the  political program of the 60's generation isn't partly to blame for what it has done to "education" and to the academy.