The Game of the Liar's Paradox

[sent to analytic]

This is a language game, not a paradox. The indicators "true" or "false" have different units of analysis. One deployment of "true" refers to the sentence, not the thing being reported in it. The other does the opposite. So if you put the sentence in quotes, the "paradox" disappears. (One wonders if it is not syntactical rather than logical paradox). Hence, "this statement is false" asserts that there is a statement, X, that is inaccurate. Saying it is true that "this statement is false" merely says that it is correct to say that X is inaccurate. If it is correct to say that X is inaccurate, that does not make X accurate, it only makes the statement accurate.

Now, I think there are two other games being played here. I think "this statement is false" is being meant (in the game) not to pick out any particular statement, X, but to refer to itself? Is that the problem? So the deployment "this statement is false" means something like "I true a false." This tries to make the speech act like a performative utterance. But even here, however, one can make sense. If one confirms that something is false (like a detective), then one, in a sense, can "true the false" (confirm falsity).  But what one clearly cannot do is "true the non-true" where the sense of true is an operator, not an indicator. That would be like saying "a is non-a" or something.  I think the key to this game is that it deploys truth as an operator when the brain would naturally see it as an indicator. As an operator, two falses = truth. As an indicator, two falses merely mean two falses.

the Value of "Philosophy" after Wittgenstein

[sent to analytic]

Hi Stuart.

Regarding your comments below, I offer the following.

1. One of the reasons that philosophy as a social club may not like Wittgensteinian thinking is purely for reasons of politics and social-group dynamics. The person who ends the club's big business isn't really going to be kept around as its beacon, if for no other reason than it makes for bad self interest.

2. But I think another reason why philosophy as a social club had to turn away from Wittgenstein was simply that no one could replicate his methods. All that people could do was either half-understand his ideas and criticize them, or come closer to understanding and teach them. In this sense Wittgenstein was almost religious (messianic). One had to decipher the word and wonder about the way. Because no one could "pick up the ball" as it were, philosophy as a social group had no choice but at some point to proceed with club activity. Incidentally, that is why this generation of club champions refer to Ludwig's methods as OLP, something which is (a) group ideology; and (b) not a very good understanding of what he was saying. 

3. But I think all of this Wittgensteinian-dissing is really problematic (on the part of the club). Because it seems to me that, even in the wake of Ludwig's discoveries, that philosophy still retains two extremely important missions. One of them it shares with history; the other with religion. Let me explain. The two missions are:

(a) It trains students in thinking exercises, the skills of which become helpful when exported into other disciplines. Just as history "perspectifies" (made that one up!) but is quite inadequate when left unto itself, so too does philosophy give a kind of perspective that is most useful when applied to a real problem. Show me any scientist or intellectual who doesn't understand history or philosophy, and I will show you a narrow mind and an incomplete intellectual/scientist. Now, this might not be true of pure trades. I imagine an accountant doesn't need to know history/philosophy to be a good accountant. But lawyers, judges, political scientists, artists -- you name it -- can benefit. In this sense, philosophy is an exercise room for a certain kind of cognition. 

(b) It carries on its "word." The fact of the matter is that the ideas that most philosophy professors have today in the social club are irrelevant. Or better yet: they are only relevant to themselves (to the group). This is true of all disciplines I think. The vast majority of club members do not produce anything original or lasting -- they just refurbish old ideas and go to conferences. But out of the club rituals -- out of keeping the activity alive -- someday someone spectacular will emerge as the generations pass. And hence, philosophy's story will continue. This is the function that philosophy has that it shares with religion. (I'm not saying that religion actually produces messiahs or anything; I'm saying it believes its group function is to pass on the word so that when critical events happen, the group across time is ready. By similar measure, philosophy as a social club keeps passing its story to people who don't produce breakthroughs, so
that, someday, someone will get the story and produce one) . 

4. Another thing that should be said about Wittgenstein's views about the role of philosophy is that they are not really understood well. Much of it gets lost in the language game. Because if philosophy is only a social club -- like a rotary -- well, then it needs no natural method. You can have people do logic, do experiments, make use of empirical literature, etc., in order to talk about things philosophy traditionally implicates. But if philosophy is a method -- and if Wittgenstein was right that it consists only in "untangling knots" caused by confusion in the language game -- then we have two conclusions: (a)  knot-fixing is still helpful; and (b) it needs to be used outside of ordinary philosophy to do the most good (so we don't have the problem of "animal belief" "I followed my ideology today," for example). And hence, we are now left with the following conclusions:

1. social clubbers caught in a meaningless tradition paradoxically have value (see (a) and (b))
2. social clubbers who are innovating and not doing philosophy-properly-conceived are still doing neat stuff, although it is not "really philosophy strictly speaking"
3. those who are untangling knots in other disciplines where it would be most useful are not numerous enough and in need of recruitment. (Translation to the social club: teach more Wittgenstein please!!!)

(P.S. You know, I don't know why philosophy isn't taught like a professional school, where the last subject you take is where they explain it was all just an exercise).

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
New Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860

===========================================
STUART SAID:

However, Wittgenstein does pose a problem for the philosophically
inclined since, if you take him at his word, there isn't a lot for
philosophers to do. Here we are on a list (or in some other venue)
banging back and forth about competing ideas we have about things.
While useful in getting clearer about this or that, what does it
really deliver for us in the end? Unless we're teaching as you are,
what is added to the world? And teaching philosophy so others can
some day teach it, well that seems to pose its own kind of problem,
doesn't it?

At least most other schools of philosophy think they are doing
something, think they are adding to the body of knowledge that
belongs to mankind. Popperians, for instance, think they are telling
scientists how to do their business. DRTsts think they are developing
new logical models which will help in certain fields, I suppose.
Logicians generally think theirs is a real field with a value that
goes beyond learning and playing the logic game. Certain
philosophers, like Searle, think they are guiding elements of the
research community down the right paths. Dennett at least steps into
the area of theoretical science when he endeavors to work with the
researchers in the AI field.

How Wittgenstein Came to Captivate Me So Much

[sent to analytic after Stuart shared his thoughts on the subject. It's too long].

Stuart I have been lecturing so long today (almost 5 hours in 3 classes) that i should surely compose this tomorrow.  But here it is anyway, in terrible form. It's also too lengthy. Why not print it and read it at your convenience.

My interest in philosophy began  as an undergraduate, when I was already a political science major. I therefore could only do a minor, but took many, many courses. The person who I credit for my interest in philosophy is Stephen Hetheringt on, who later went back to Australia (where he is today). When Stephen originally found me, I was in sort of a "funk," philosophically. I had been captured by existentialist thought -- being exposed to Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Buber, Sartre  and other Continentals when my mind was still young and naive. Those thoughts seemed so powerful back then. Although other philosophy was around in political science format -- you know, Plato, Marx, Machiavelli, Nietschze, etc. -- existentialists were the first to "take me over." It fit well with my ideology at the time, because I was developing a rather radical leftist outlook (liked the 60s, the counter culture, etc.). (There are pictures on my website of me
protesting the first Gulf war in 1990).

But Stephen pulled me out of all of that. Not necessarily the politics, but the spurious foundation I had used to shut down my mind in favor of declaring passions. And he did it in three classes I took from him -- epistemology, metaphysics and (i think -- it's been so long) language philosophy. What I remember about Stephen was that he was brilliant at letting you make your own mistakes. Getting your thought out, then showing you the problems and sending you back to confront them. What you learn out of the experience is both the need for, and trouble with, foundation. You also work on "brain skills" (conceptuali zing) that is so necessary for philosophy.

Stephen would show you things, and although many times names would be explicitly attached to them -- Kripke, Wittgenstein, etc. -- many more times the goal was simply the ideas. It didn't matter who they belonged to. Stephen held the ideas as repertoire ready to dispense as each needed. Philosophy was never historical in his classes. It was always a thought project. This "workshop approach" really helped me get rid of existentialism and skepticism and pragmatism -- because it was not by declaration or rant, but me reaching the conclusion that they no longer could be sustained. This, of course, builds character. Because you learn now that passions can mislead. An extremely important lesson that only philosophy -- and NEVER political science -- will ever show you. (Political science does the opposite. It covers this fact up and just encourages passion as being "part of politics." Political science is dead and dreary).

Anyway, after I had overthrown these influences, I went hard core in the opposite direction and converted to logical positivism. There was another logical positivist at the University who I took classes with. He also very much hardened this tendency in my thought. (My favorite fictional character was Spock).

All the while, I had a modest appreciation for Wittgenstein, but not an exuberant one. Really I did not know enough about him, I think. Only general things (slogans) and a general appreciation for what the Tractus represented to the Vienna Circle, a movement I admired very much. I really like A.J. Ayer's book. Most importantly, though, I had Steve Hetherington' s ideas in my head, which were often nameless but clearly Wittgenstein- inspired (as they were non-Wittgensteinian ).  

In law school, several things happened. First, I discovered that law schools beat the philosophy out of you. They like only to pretend that they are "philosophic"  -- you know, Socratic method and all. But they regiment your mind so that it no longer functions "creatively. " I remember having this bizzare thought that what law school really was, if I could paint it, would be a man on a set of monkey bars. Swing from this bar to the next. That is what the intellectual exercise consisted of. (I could actually see the painting in my head).  And oh the professors there are so pseudo intellectual. (Not all, of course. Just in general).

But two basic things happened to me in law school. First, I took a class at another university that taught me jurisprudence HISTORICALLY. No one had ever done that. Teaching philosophy through history was an epiphany to me every bit as important at Stephen Hetherington' s method. Applying this technique, one could now see, e.g., John Locke in a radical new way -- through the eyes of radical Whig politics in England rather than as a set of premises about the state. Man, did that turn some lights on. Of course, the class that showed me this method was jurisprudence, as I say. I had always had jurisprudence courses -- in undergrad, and in law school (apart from the one I'm  talking about). It had become my favorite subject, and I was (and remain somewhat) taken with Ronald Dworkin.

Wittgenstein was not explicitly in my thoughts in these days, but his influence  would crop up every now and then. For example, during my third year of law school, I had this English professor teach me what lawyers call "critical legal studies." What a joke that was. The guy would take a bunch of word pairs like "freedom -- order" and "construct -- justification" and put them horizontally  on the board. He would then circle the vertical side of a pair grouping and say that this is a certain ideology, while the other side was its counter. The point being: life was a fundamental contradiction. You could not deploy the ideas without bias. The point further translated by me (and this is the Wittgensteinian- inspired thing coming out of me): if a concept has an antonym, you can't use it. What was the true ideology was the lecture. The idea of the "fundamental contradiction"  later became known as the "Dunkin Kennedy fallacy" (for the law prof who
invented it) [and even he withdrew from it]. But I remember critiquing those ideas with great zeal. It would light a flame within me.

After law school, I practiced law for about 5 years before going back to graduate school. I felt intellectually dead when my mind was forced to practice law. God how I had yearned to go back to contemplating something for its own sake. Because I didn't want to waste my education, I picked a "legal studies" sort of field. I also had Wittgenstein in the back of my mind, who had warned me against being a philosopher. I had thought: philosophy done unto itself degenerates into an irrelevant conversation,  as history degenerates into trivia. I wanted something that could harness and raid history and philosophy and APPLY it. Make it useful. I had picked political science because it had this idea of studying jurisprudential issues empirically. I foolishly and quite incorrectly thought that if they were actually studying something empirical -- like a scientist (duh) -- that they would have better jurisprudential theories (which turned out to be the
exact opposite).

Now this is critical: as I was in grad school and began studying again, I had developed very keen Wittgenstein impulses that began stewing in me. My admiration from him grew daily. You will note that the reason I did not go into philosophy for Ph.D was really a Wittgensteinian idea dormant within me.  The way this works is neat. When a professor teaches you an idea (as an undergraduate) , you (being creative) think about it here and there and chew on it all throughout your life. The same exact path or channels that your mind goes upon is similar to the surrounding ideas that the original thinker of the idea had as it was taught to you. That is what contemplation does; it's kind of like mining. These tangents that run through the head are like the irrigation of seeds. Someone plants the seed (professor), and you irrigate the idea as you energetically self contemplate. I've always talked with myself very energetically. People catch me all
the time locked in self-thought. It's actually embarrassing.

So my point is this: I had good Wittgenstein impulses in graduate school. I had long abandoned logical positivism as being too narrow minded, but still saw skepticism as nonsense. I had appropriately absorbed methods class with grain of salt. I was distrustful of hardened-systems of logic or theory, but not so of conceptualism.  As I like to say it: I was against "formalism but not conceptualism. "

And then it happened. I started reading those damn biographies.  Oh dear god what happened next. I have every damn thing he ever wrote. I read and re-read them, even today. They are like scripture to me. I find new insights into him all the time and find all sorts of people saying things about him that don't really get the gist of it. One cannot understand Wittgenstein until one tries to stand in his psychology. Also, there is so much similarity I found in these biographies to the manners that I myself display, that I must confess to being extremely intrigued by his life.  I'm not talking about washing dishes in the tub, either. I just simply mean certain personality features and quirks. I admire Wittgenstein like no other intellectual I have ever found.

One of the beautiful things about it is that it is anti-Wittgensteinia n to be a groupie. One should never espouse any of Wittgenstein' s ideas merely because he did. Always the idea itself stands upon its own making. That was his rule, and he lived by it. 

And the rest of the story is this: as an academic, I became immersed in philosophy and cognitive linguistics. I am very well read in philosophy right now. But I consider my primary concentrations to be language philosophy and philosophy of law. Those are the two fields I would classify myself as an expert. The rest I'm just conversant. (I'm putting together a course called Wittgenstein, Language and Politics -- when I have it ready, I'll let you know. It will webcast on the internet) 

Long live Ludwig!  
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
New Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860

What is Science?

[sent to analytic in response to the question, "what is the proper definition of science?"]
 
... it depends upon whether you mean "science" to be a title, a social club, a behavior, or a state of affairs for propositions (certainty) -- or some complicated mixture of all of these things. (If you do intend a recipe, beware that cooking has variation).

[don't know if you can see this with proper formatting, but here are some remarks from an old paper of mine]:
_________________________________________________________________________

1.0.          What is Science?
1.1.                     People may mean different things when they use the word “science.”
1.1.1.      Some may merely mean a group of academic scholars with a shared interest in a given subject and a professional regimentation. Science as “organized scholarly professionalism.” With this way of speaking one might say that any organized department in a college or university today is a “science.” Art appreciation is a sort of “science” in this way of talking. The people who practice art appreciation are serious about what they do, they teach certain conventions to others, develop and carry on “knowledge,” write about what me might call “disciplinary matters,” and so forth. In this sense of talking, law is also a science. So is communications. So is theater.
1.1.1.1.              But astrology, for example, is not.  It cannot be a science according to this vernacular because the academy has not christened it. Same with religion (although not religious studies). Were these pursuits to gain membership in academia – and were students to major and enroll in these subjects – then, they, too, would be “science” according to this way of speaking.    
1.1.2.      Others may mean it to refer to those who study some phenomena in the external world. Hence, mathematics or logic would not be a “science” according to this way of talking. Only the data-gatherers and world-watchers would count. Only empirical pursuits would quality. (Of course, there would be debate about what is “empirical”).
1.1.3.      Others may say that science is the study of only natural phenomena in the external world, which means that subjects like geology, chemistry, physics, anatomy, biology, are in, but subjects such as economics, sociology, psychology, etc., are not counted. Indeed, there is the need to say of these latter pursuits that they are “social science.” This grammar suggests something adjective, which is an indication that behavioral sciences are not exemplars of the idea. (Similar ideas come from the expression “hard” or “soft” science, or natural science).
1.1.4.      Still others may attempt to define science according to a specific methodological criterion. Science is, e.g., the process of falsifying empirical hypotheses. Note that this suggests science is a behavior, not a subject. It is an activity. Presumably, anyone could do science so long as they behaved properly.
1.1.4.1.              Let us imagine a creation scientist who spent productive years falsifying certain evolutionary hypotheses. As to this behavior, we would have to say it was “scientific,” although we might not say that other aspects of the behavior – e.g., obstinately believing in a created world – would count as “science.” (This would be because the latter behavior was not an attempt to falsify an empirical hypothesis). Hence, if science is a behavior, any social group can both engage and not engage in it when furthering the goals of the group.
1.2.                       My Intentions.—
1.2.1.      It is not my intention in these remarks to declare what “science” is. Philosophers who seek to turn semantics into legalisms do not understand what philosophy is. I want to do something different. All I really want to do is to identify a particular kind of behavior that scholars who are often said to be “scientists” engage in. When I identify this behavior, X, I will say that “science engages in X,” but what is meant is only that “a way of talking exists such that a distinct group of scholars, Y, called ‘scientists,’ engage in X.”  It would not be a proper response to say of this premise, “political science doesn’t do this, and they are also considered a ‘science,’ too.”  This objection plays a language game. It misunderstands what is said.
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
New Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860

________________________________
From: gerardoprim
To: analytic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 9, 2008 7:07:50 PM
Subject: [analytic] Is falsability enough for the demarcation of science?

Hello, I'd like to know what do you think about the demarcation of
science vs nonscience. Is falsability a necessary condition? Is it a
sufficient condition? What are the other relevant criteria? Or should
we abandon the goal of demarcation?

Best Regards,
Gerardo.