In and Out of Language
Wittgenstein suggests some things we philosophers define in a context-free way should rather be recognized as different in different examples, different situations, different contexts. This is consistent with Austin’s work on the argument from illusion in Sense and Sensibilia and his treatments of truth and reality. We might try to test or to appraise this suggestion by thinking about our temptation to define language in a context free way. There are several ways we could go with this. We might check against examples (such as when a mother tells her child to watch her language, and when a literature class is assigned an analysis of the language of the third act of Antony and Cleopatra, and when anthropologists debate over the number of families of Native American languages, and when someone who is not a native English speaker asks what the word “language” means in the title English as a Second Language on her new three-ring binder) in which someone encounters talk about language and asks for an explanation and would get nothing like the philosophical account in reply in the example. We might take the terms of the answer we are tempted to give (such as, perhaps, signs, meaning, sounds, communication), and check against examples in which those terms show up in non-philosophically-loaded conversations, and find again that explanations sought and found within those examples have nothing in common with the philosophical lines of thought we found so tempting.
I here do a small piece of that work. When we are tempted by the idea that we know what language is in a context-free way or we are tempted to define language in a way that allegedly holds for all contexts, it’s likely we will then think we know when something is in language and when it is not in language. I grapple with this temptation and offer up results, which suggest there is something wrong with the seemingly innocuous philosophical problem, “What is in language and what outside of language?”
My goal is to show there is something wrong with this idea, with the very problem or question. I think this showing involves laying out a temptation, then an unsuccessful grappling with the temptation which leaves us siding with Wittgenstein in a prisoner-of-war camp at the end of W.W. I, then a more successful grappling that remains unfinished.
I'll separate three different pieces of this meditation: one piece is a philosophically tempting line of thought which pulls us into a set of problems; a second is some responses to that line of thought which I think of as therapeutic but still unsuccessful, trying to think about it in ways which might illuminate possibilities; and lastly reminders of what can be justified regarding that line of thought by appeal to ordinary language examples.
First of all, it is tempting for some of us to think that language is easy to spot, that it consists of sentences, words, utterances, which we see being used by people for communication. The sentences are not themselves the things that are being communicated but are instead stand-ins for some things which are not themselves in language.
The process of using language, then, involves taking things which are not in language and finding ways to get them into language. The details of this process will be perhaps more clear after we have more results from neurolinguistics, but in general there will be some kinds of mapping functions which take message types and map those onto utterance types and then, with those functions providing the general rules, token utterances will be generated which make their way from speakers to hearers and then by a reversal of the rules for generating language will be understood by those hearers.
So consider the following situation and some resulting language: We have taught our dog not to get on the couch. For a couple of years, say, I've never seen her on the couch and neither have you, who live with me. Unbeknownst to us, though, she's been routinely sleeping on the couch for years while we are gone, but since she doesn't shed much and you and I are both kind of oblivious and your vision is not so hot, and she always gets up and is at the door jumping around when we come in, we don't know that she gets on the couch.
One fateful day I come home alone, pet the dog at the door, put groceries away, and then carry the newspaper in from the kitchen and sit on the couch. I lean back and yawn and put my hand on the couch beside me and after a bit realize the couch is warm, look at it and see a couple of dog hairs. I feel the couch. Definitely warm. I hear your car in the driveway and the dog starts whimpering and going in circles at the front door.
Let's take a break for a moment to check in on the health of our temptations. We have some candidates for things which are not yet in language though I'm about to tell you that the dog got on the couch. The fact that the dog got on the couch, for instance--surely that's not in language. I cannot say what I don't know and have not yet thought, namely that the dog got on the couch countless times in the last few years, so surely that's not in language. The dog curled up lying with her nose on her tail on our nice, still-in-nearly-new-condition couch while you and I are out in the world making it safe for philosophy--that dog, that couch, that curl, nor the combination of all those, is not a linguistic object, not a sentence, not an utterance, not in language. There is the sentence I am about to utter, but what the sentence is about is separate from the sentence. I could, after all, not tell you, since this is going to be very hard on you and if I don't tell you you'll probably never find out and the dog and I can share this guilty secret, a secret that never finds its way into words. And if it's not in words it's not in language.
We could make a tabulated list in two columns, what's language and what's not language. What I tell you after I've given you a chance to be greeted by the dog and to take off your coat and I've told you your phone message, what I tell you, now that's in language. What you understand based on what I tell you is not language. What I am prompted by or put into words is not language. Shucks, this is easy. There's the string of words--that's language. There's what the string of words is about, the surroundings for the string of words, the states of affairs which lead up to and prompt me to produce the string of words and the effects of the string of words, and all of that is not language.
And yet. Always there is the And yet. There are some bothersome things about the example.
You come in the door, crouch down and tell the dog, falsely though you don't know it, that she's a Gooood dog, yes she is, and then you take off your coat and I tell you your phone message and that I'm making that pesto with pine nuts, and when you look at the paper on the couch I tell you, "The dog got on the couch."
Philosophical Doubts--The First Moves
Here are some of the bothersome things about the example. The thing that I am going to put into words is, the dog got on the couch. What has been going on for years, not in words but still, is that the dog got on the couch. What you come to understand is the dog got on the couch. The state of affairs leading up to my telling you what I wind up telling you is the same damned thing as what I tell you, namely the dog got on the couch. Not the cat, not the hamster or the neighbor kid's tarantula, not under or against or into or even on top of, not one of our several couches but the, not the recliner or the coffee table or the window ledge, but just the couch. The dog got on the couch. The bothersome things get worse. Consider the truth, which Augustine points out is neither Hebrew nor Greek nor Latin nor barbaric of tongue. You speak French fluently and I a little, and both of us of course know Latin and Greek and German since we are philosophers. There are then a lot of alternatives for the utterances, the languages, by which I let you know the dog got on the couch and we are tempted by our learning to think the propositional content of all those sentences is not the same as any of he sentences themselves. That is, I could say "Der Hund erhielt auf der Couch." or I could say (since my French is very bad, "Le chien a obtenu sur le divan," perhaps because I don't want the dog to know we are talking about her--but the bothersome thing is that the propositional content, the truth which we look for, which we think is something more basic than Hebrew or Latin or Greek or our barbaric English is that the dog got on the couch. Indeed, what we are saying in French or German is the dog got on the couch, at least if we are successful in saying it. And the it, aieee, is the dog got on the couch.
Somewhere in here we may be struck like Paul on the road to Damascus or W. on the Russian Front, and we will think things like the following: We cannot get away from language. We will, perhaps, feed Derrida his line, that there is nothing which is not text. We will think we cannot see in the way human beings with language see without language being present in our seeing. All, all, is in language. The structure of the world has to be the structure of language. (If cautious, we might put this in terms of something like the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, or think language "shapes" perception.) Seeing now for us who have language is done in language. There's nothing that's not in language. The thing that you and I did not know for the last two years is that the dog got on the couch. What is that thing? Well, the only way we have to make sense of it is to point out that stuff about, it wasn't the cat or the canary or the goldfinch or Virginia Woolf and it didn't just think about it it actually got on it and it didn't get around it or in it or on top of it and it was not one of several but the, and it wasn't the windowledge or the recliner it was the couch--and in the face of the realization that the things we thought were not in language can only be made sense of by talking or writing and so within language, whatever shall we do?? Besides the fact that all that training, all that self-esteem we achieved by being good at being dog trainers, all that comparative value of being convinced that we were smarter than a dog, is called into horrible question.
Next: Language in Philosophy, Language in the World
My suggestion, that within the example we might have several languages at our disposal, provided a way for us to think about propositions and Augustine's crack about the truth, but now it might serve another purpose. It might provide a way for talk about language to show up, not just as we think from the outside about the example, but show up within the example. If there is a question about the extent to which in both of the sections above I am being guided by a picture of language rather than am finding anything out from the example, if there’s a possible problem about the extent to which I have begged philosophical questions, then having some place for talk of language to make sense in the example might be important.
When I tell you about the dog getting on the couch and I do so in French because the dog does not understand French and I'm not sure I want her to know that we are onto her, you might ask, since you are the one with good French and my accent, grammar, vocabulary, is tres abominable, "John, what language are you speaking? And Why?" So there's language in the example.
Is there anything in the example which is not in language? With the reminder above of what talking about language might be in the example, then this question is revealed as enormously problematic. It is one which can only be made sense of by buying wholesale a large matched set, a pallet, of philosophical portmanteaus, steamer trunks, suitcases, toiletries bags, and carry-on bags. This raises the question of whether that does in fact make sense. That is, the question requires we do think we can see language when it is before us and it is the words/utterances/sounds/sentences people put together in order to communicate with each other. There are lots of ways not to investigate this way of thinking. For instance, we might want to quarrel, since it's a grand tradition for centuries now to quarrel, about what it is the words etc. stand for, whether it's irredeemably mental for instance or how best to give an illuminating account of meanings or thoughts or ideas or content or messages or information or propositions or illocutionary act potentials or intentions or behaviors-and-dispositions- to-behave or remnants of meaning. We could do that without calling the picture into question at all. We have, in fact. We do, in fact. We seem to have a gift for not investigating this picture while we keep our heads down tweezing splinters.
Could I make sense of anything like the philosopher's question in the example? You've asked me a question or couple of questions, namely "What language are you speaking? And Why?" I could answer by holding up my finger to my mouth and pointing behind my hand at the dog, and repeating my report. Or, perhaps, by shushing you and taking your arm and ushing you outside for a little walk during which I can share my mournful news in private. I might in the course of that answer your question directly, apologizing for mangling French (so identifying a language) and tell you I was trying to tell you in French so the dog would not catch on. If I perseverate in French, you might cover your ears and say, "All right already, stick with a language you know. I get dizzy when you try to say stuff in French." Maybe we would be able to push (I'm not quite sure how–maybe in a later moment when you are embarrassing me at a party by recounting this incident) toward a comment that part of the (not example but) conversation was in French and part in English, so part in one language but part in another. None of which would support a claim that there is anything in the example which is either not in language or not-not in language.
Still, the picture has a good grip. Even without the talk in the example about language which is occasioned by our having different languages at our disposal, we are strongly tempted to think there's language present in the example. If I tell you something, then there must be language, even with no French on the scene. Further, if I tell you something, I must use words in order to tell you; I utter things; I generate strings of words, I make sounds; I provide sentences. This will take longer than we have. But consider words. You might in the example furrow your brows and ask about "divan;" You might remark, in a perhaps slightly over-calm tone of voice, that no one uses "divan" any more. I might furrow my brow and say that's what my little English-French dictionary gave me, and ask, "What word would you recommend?" You might suggest the word canape as more appropriate or commonly used, and while I might shake my head and wonder about finger foods, for which of course the dog also has a weakness, I'll trust you on this and trade one word for the other. There, doesn't that show we've got words? And of course it does, –two, anyway. Remember though what in the case makes sense of the talk about words, namely my gaffe, the fact that divan is to be found only in English-French dictionaries with the pages at a minimum level of yellow and crumbling. Without something like that (a spectacularly mispronounced word, perhaps, or my being outrageously overly scholarly, or forgetting and putting in a German word into the middle) how would anything about words come up? (Well, of course we've seen one way it can come up, namely we philosophers shine our Junior Batlights, the ones with the silhouettes taped to the lenses, onto the example and then lots of things are revealed, most of them looking remarkably like bats.)
I'm not saying the fact or the words or the sentences ARE in language, or that the world is in language, though those might be useful as therapeutic moves. I'm saying the picture of language as consisting of sentences/words/utterances which stand for things which are not the sentences etc. is in trouble
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What’s this mean? It’s not a proof, but it does seem consistent with the following suggestions (and to support them), which suggestions I learned from Austin, Wittgenstein, Frank Ebersole, and their followers who taught me. First, the existence of the problem (What’s in language, what’s outside of language?) may not be the result of any real need for explanation so much as it is the result of a picture, a rudimentary and abstract sketch of human beings using language, conversing, in which we seem to see hidden internal objects which need some signs as proxies to give them public existence. Second, the fact that language in nonphilosophical examples is wildly more diverse than it is in philosophical accounts suggests the philosophical accounts may not describe at all those things of which they are allegedly accounts. Third, the inconsistency between my philosophical temptations and the examples may mean I need to spend more time in justifying the problem before I get to the arguments for any of the possible answers. Finally, perhaps the philosophers’ accounts of language are in fact accounts of nothing more than their own projections, and a great thicket of misunderstandings may need to be swept away before we can achieve any positive results on these topics.