Yet There Is Method In It

It would be a vast understatement to say that I have a strong interest in the philosophy of language, and that this influences the way in which I approach other aspects of philosophy. But despite my many posts on language games I havent always clarified my views on the field itself. So this short post is to fill that void.

In my opinion a philosophy of language is broadly semiotic, i.e. a study of the systems of signs that we use in communication. And a comprehensive philosophy of language encompasses all the many different means of communication we have and ideally should also tackle non-human languages.

Crucially though a philosophy of language is not (or rather should not be) exclusively logocentric, i.e. focused solely on the spoken or written word, but should incorporate other systems of signification and signifiers.

Generally though most of the famous theories in the philosophy of language have focused predominantly on words, mostly for the sake of convenience. Wittgenstein and Lyotard mostly focused on these language games, though Wittgenstein was interested in proposing a broader semiotic theory. On the contrary Derrida focused almost exclusively on texts.

Historically the philosophy of language has studied natural languages i.e. linguistics, and semiotics has studied other language forms. But it is important to remember that the distinction is one of traditions rather than subject (one arising out of philosophy, the other out of science).

An example of how the two overlap struck me this afternoon. I was attending a funeral, conducted according to Christian rites. After much contemplation, discussion and protest I wore a black tie, black trousers, and “smart” black shoes. I protested because I find the neck-tie to be a non-functional and reduntant item of clothing and not a little restrictive around my neck. Similarly I dislike the “smart” black shoes as they are somewhat less comfortable than my usual footwear. And above all I resent the fact that in attending a funeral I should dress in anyway different from that which I would have done when visiting the person alive – particularly when that person had little time for such petty conventionalism either.

In my discussions two particular themes arose, firstly it was a sign of respect (both to the deceased and their immediate family), secondly it is the done thing to be respectful at funerals.

Part of me felt uncomfortable at this demand for conformity, after all most people (Christians included) believe that after death the body is an empty husk or shell. Whether you believe in a soul or not most people accept that the body of the deceased is lacking something. It is no longer the person we all knew and loved. And yet we still have traditions of showing respect to this empty vessel, perhaps partly this is a residue of much older belief systems, or perhaps again it is simply an expression of a more general respect towards both the deceased and the bereaved.

Ultimately I bowed to pressure and conformed, but it struck me as a pertinent example of Wittgensteins fundamental principle of language games. Language, and by this I mean any broad system of signification, gets its meaning from its use. Thus the emphasis on wearing black, a visual symbol if ever there was one, was based not on some sort of positivistic essence where black always means death, mourning, grief and so on. But rather the wearing of black has gained this meaning through consensus. It signifies mourning, or respect because society decided it did at some point in time.

Crucially though and again contrary to positivistic assumptions this is only one of many different significative meanings for the colour black. It can have many other different meanings and as a consequence many other associated values. For example in the US, Black Cats are symbols of bad luck, whereas in the UK they symbolise good luck. In Japan the colour black represents age, wisdom and experience, hence the highest grade that a martial artist can attain is usually signified by a black belt.

I’m sure there are many other examples, but as I sat awaiting the service to begin, tugging at the knot of my neck-tie and wincing in discomfort from my shoes, I took solace in the fact that my compromise was shared by many others in the same room, I was participating in a language game.

It is one of the tasks of the philosophy of language, particularly the post-positivistic traditions, to emphasise the cultural and cognitive relativism of language games. That the meanings we attach to signs are not fixed but are fluid and sometimes quite arbitrary.

With this in mind maybe next time I shall not wear black, or simply do without the neck-tie. Or maybe I will, who knows?

I have been an admirer of Librivox for some time. It is an informal group of readers, mostly amateur, who read out of copyright works and release them for free (by public domain). Perhaps the only down side for selective ears is the bias toward American accents but one can be selective. One reader is particularly relevant to philosophy – D. E. Wittkower is a good reader of philosophical books: some completed jointly and some as a solo reading project.

His solo reading includes: Epictetus – The Enchiridion, Hegel – Introduction to The Philosophy of History – James, The Moral Equivalent of War – Kant, Of the Injustice of Counterfeiting Books and On the Popular Judgment and Perpetual Peace – Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration – Mill, Utilitarianism – Nietzsche (surprise surprise!) The Antichrist and Twilight – Schopenhauer, Studies in Pessimism not to mention several joint works.

AC1

PS Full disclosure: I have recently become a participant in the project.

Just to turn the tables on religious leaders who discuss the morality of various aspects of science, I was reading a short commentary on a project on studying the origin and nature of religion from a scientific view. Fortunately they seem to be aware of the inherent difficulties:

…”religion” and “religiosity” are very ill-defined terms. New Scientist

It seems one outcome might be to predict future trends in religious movements. The author also makes the point that Greek and Roman gods were viewed by their believers as part of the natural (i.e. empirical) world. Obviously the Abrahamic religious completely departed from this concept.

In other news, I saw another significant leak of Scientology’s documentation on wikileaks – the first time the entire system from clear to OT8 has been publically available. (And it is being suppressed by the church using copyright law.) I should get around to commenting on that movement…

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“Report Suggests That Nanny State Might Actually Not Be For the Best” Slashdot

In a piece titled “Landmine charity: Ban the killer robots before it’s too late!” (The Register), an interesting point was made that a robot could actually cause less shootings of innocents because a human has to consider the situation with regard to self preservation. “Is the suspect reaching for a gun?” A human could fire, a robot could wait a few more seconds. Oh and the writer pointed out that “automatic killing machines” were invented more than 100 years ago – magnetic mines!

Oh yeah and Microsoft’s OOXML specification was just ratified by the ISO. You might wonder what has that to do with anything? Well I am too tired to say but I might get around to ranting on that later. (Basically its a political issue – many people have compared the ISO process to the Zimbabwe elections!)

Anti Citizen One