Saying and Showing

Again, show what?  'There are objects' is nonsense.  One cannot say that there are objects.  This is shown by the use of variables.  But what is shown if not that there are objects?  There, I've said it!

Ray Monk reports on a discussion between Wittgenstein and Russell.  L. W. balked at Russell's 'There are at least three things in the world.'  So Russell took a sheet of white paper and made three ink spots on it.  'There are three ink spots on this sheet.'  L. W. refused to budge.  He granted 'There are three ink spots on the sheet' but balked at the inference to 'There are at least three things in the world.'

W's perspective is broadly Kantian.  The transcendental conditions of possible experience are not themselves objects of possible experience.  They cannot be on pain of infinite regress.  But he goes Kant one better: it is not just that the transcendental conditions cannot be experienced or known; they cannot be sensibly talked about. Among them is the world as the ultimate context of all experiencing and naming and predicating and counting.  As transcendental, the world cannot be sensibly talked about as if it were just another thing in the world like the piece of paper with its three spots.  And so, given that what cannot be said clearly cannot be said at all but must be passed over in silence, one cannot say that the world is such that it has at least three things it it.  So W. balked and went silent when R. tried to get him to negotiate the above inference.

What goes for 'world' also goes for 'thing.'  You can't count things.  How many things on my desk?  The question has no clear sense.  It is not like asking how many pens are on my desk.  So Wittgenstein is on to something.  His nonsense is deep and important.

The Inexpressible

The Tractarian Wittgenstein says that there is the Inexpressible.   But what is inexpressible?  Presumably, if there is the Inexpressible then there must be a quid answering to the est.  Could there be truths that cannot be expressed? A truth is a true truth-bearer, a true sentence, proposition, judgment, statement, assertion, belief, asseveration, belief, claim, etc.  But these all — different as they are among themselves — involve expression, articulation, objectification.  An inexpressible truth amounts to an inexpressible expression.  More precisely: an inexpressible truth is something that is both expressible inasmuch as it is a truth but also inexpressible inasmuch as it is — inexpressible.

And therein lies a problem for our mystical positivist.  In this connection Theodor Adorno speaks of Wittgenstein's indescribable spiritual vulgarity.

Wittgenstein on Darwin

One thing I definitely applaud in Wittgenstein is his opposition to scientism.   M. O'C. Drury in Conversations with Wittgenstein, ed. Rush Rhees (Oxford, 1984), pp. 160-161:

     One day, walking in the Zoological Gardens, we admired the immense
     variety of flowers, shrubs, trees, and the similar multiplicity of
     birds, reptiles, animals.

     WITTGENSTEIN: I have always thought that Darwin was wrong: his
     theory does not account for all the variety of species. It hasn't
     the necessary multiplicity. Nowadays some people are fond of saying
     that at last evolution has produced a species that is able to
     understand the whole process which gave it birth. Now that you
     can't say.

     DRURY: You could say that now there has evolved a strange animal
     that collects other animals and puts them in gardens. But you can't
     bring the concepts of knowledge and understanding into this series.
     They are different categories entirely.

     WITTGENSTEIN: Yes, you could put it that way.

To imagine that evolutionary theory could cast light on the concepts of knowledge and understanding involves a massive metabasis eis allo genos, to use a a favorite Greek phrase of Kierkegaard.

‘Foolish’ Songs for April Fool’s Day

Last night I foolishly failed to save my drafts of my Saturday Night at the Oldies post replete with a load of links to songs, and a temporary TypePad outage banished the post to cyber-oblivion.  Well, here are some of them, da capo, in celebration or bemoanment of human folly the chief instance of which is romantic love.  Who has never been played for a fool by a charming member of the opposite sex?

Elvis Presley, A Fool Such as I
Ricky Nelson, Poor Little Fool.  Those "carefree devil eyes" will do it every time. 
Brenda Lee, Fool #1
The Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl
Ricky Nelson, Fools Rush In.  "Fools rush in/Where wise men never go/But wise men never fall in love/So how are they to know?" 
Sam Cooke, Fool's Paradise. Sage advice
Elvin Bishop, Fooled Around and Fell in Love
Kingston Trio, Some Fool Made a Soldier of Me
Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, My Foolish Heart
Bill Evans, Foolish Heart

Frege Meets Aquinas: A Passage from De Ente et Essentia

Here is a passage from Chapter 3 of Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence (tr. Robert T. Miller, emphasis added):

The nature, however, or the essence thus understood can be considered in two ways. First, we can consider it according to its proper notion, and this is to consider it absolutely. In this way, nothing is true of the essence except what pertains to it absolutely: thus everything else that may be attributed to it will be attributed falsely. For example, to man, in that which he is a man, pertains animal and rational and the other things that fall in his definition; white or black or whatever else of this kind that is not in the notion of humanity does not pertain to man in that which he is a man. Hence, if it is asked whether this nature, considered in this way, can be said to be one or many, we should concede neither alternative, for both are beyond the concept of humanity, and either may befall the conception of man. If plurality were in the concept of this nature, it could never be one, but nevertheless it is one as it exists in Socrates. Similarly, if unity were in the notion of this nature, then it would be one and the same in Socrates and Plato, and it could not be made many in the many individuals. Second, we can also consider the existence the essence has in this thing or in that: in this way something can be predicated of the essence accidentally by reason of what the essence is in, as when we say that man is white because Socrates is white, although this does not pertain to man in that which he is a man.

What intrigues me about this passage is the following argument that it contains:

1. A nature can be considered absolutely (in the abstract) or according to the being it has in this or that individual.
2. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is not one.  For if oneness were included in the nature of humanity, e.g., then humanity could not exist in many human beings.
3. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is not many. For if manyness were included in the nature of humanity, e.g., then humanity could not exist in one man, say, Socrates.
Therefore
4. If a nature is considered absolutely, then it is neither one nor many, neither singular nor plural.

I find this argument intriguing because I find it extremely hard to evaluate, and because I find the conclusion to be highly counterintuitive.  It seems to me obvious that a nature or essence such as humanity is one, not many, and therefore not neither one nor many!

The following is clear.  There are many instances of humanity, many human beings.  Therefore, there can be many such instances. It follows that there is nothing in the nature of humanity to preclude there being many such instances.  But there is also nothing in the nature of humanity to require that there be many instances of humanity, or even one instance.  We can express this by saying that the nature humanity neither requires nor precludes its being instantiated. This nature, considered absolutely, logically allows multiple instantiation, single instantiation, and no instantiation.  It logically allows that there be many men, just one man, or no men.

But surely it does not follow that the nature humanity is neither one nor many.  What Aquinas is doing above is confusing what Frege calls a mark (Merkmal) of a concept with a property (Eigenschaft)  of a concept.  The marks of a concept are the subconcepts which are included within it.  Thus man has animal and rational as marks.  But these are not properties of the concept man since no concept is an animal or is rational.  Being instantiated is an example of a property of man, a property that cannot be a mark of man.   In general, the marks of a concept are not properties thereof, and vice versa.  Exercise for the reader:  find a counterexample, a concept which is such that one of its marks is also a property of it.

Aquinas has an insight which can be expressed in Fregean jargon as follows.  Being singly instantiated — one in reality —  and being multiply instantiated — many in reality — are not marks (Merkmale) of the nature humanity.  But because he (along with everyone else prior to 1884) confuses marks with properties (Eigenschaften), he concludes that the nature itself cannot be either one or many.

To put it another way, Aquinas confuses the 'is' of predication ('Socrates is a man') with the 'is' of subordination ('Man is an animal').  Man is predicable of Socrates, but animal is not predicable of man, pace Aristotle, Categories 3b5: no concept or nature is an animal.  Socrates falls under man; Animal falls within manAnimal is superordinate to man while man is subordinate to animal.

For these reasons I do not find the argument from De Ente et Essentia compelling.  But perhaps there is a good Thomist response.