Here. (Link via Frank Beckwith's FB page. Interesting how many conservatives are Dylan fans. Lawrence Auster is another.)
It is a fascinating, rich speech by a living repository of musical Americana and without a doubt the most creative interpreter of our musical legacy, the "bard of our generation" as Auster puts it. One is moved by the gratitude and generosity Dylan displays toward the many people over the years who helped him and believed in him, but slightly put off by his digs at his detractors. He seems to think he has been uniquely singled out for criticism. "Why me, Lord?"
As I said, a very rich speech. But every Dylanologist knows that nothing Dylan says about himself or his music should be taken too seriously. He is a master of many personae and the man himself likes to hide. As he puts it in The Man in Me:
The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen But that's just because he doesn't want to turn into some machine.
The best documentation of Dylan the shape shifter and one of the best all-around books on Dylan is David Dalton, Who is That Man? In Search of the Real Bob Dylan (Hyperion, 2012). If you were 'in there' with him in the heart of '60s you will delight in this well-written volume.
The speech ends on this note:
I'm going to get out of here now. I'm going to put an egg in my shoe and beat it. I probably left out a lot of people and said too much about some. But that's OK. Like the spiritual song, 'I'm still just crossing over Jordan too.' Let's hope we meet again. Sometime. And we will, if, like Hank Williams said, "the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise."
High Water comes to mind. This is a late-career Dylan gem from Love and Theft (2001). A tribute to Charley Patton. Demonstrates Dylan's mastery of the arcana of Americana. Our greatest and deepest singer-songwriter.
I got a cravin’ love for blazing speed, got a hopped-up Mustang Ford, jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard. I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind, I’m no pig without a wig, I hope you treat me kind, things are breakin’ up out there, high water everywhere.
My favorite verse:
Well, George Lewis told the Englishman, the Italian and the Jew You can't open up your mind, boys, to every conceivable point of view They got Charles Darwin trapped out there on Highway 5 Judge says to the High Sheriff, "I want them dead or alive" Either one, I don't care, high water everywhere.
Nosiree, Bob, you can't open up your mind to every conceivable point of view, especially when its not dark yet, but it's getting there.
We Americans are forward-looking people, 'progressives' if you will. ("History is bunk," said Henry Ford.) Muslims, by contrast, live in the past where they nurture centuries-old grievances. This is part of the explanation of the inanition of their culture and the misery of their lands, which fact is part of the explanation of why they won't stay where they are but insist on infiltrating the West. Exercised as they remain over the Crusades, lo these many centuries later, it behooves us to inform ourselves of the historical facts. This is especially important in light of President Obama's recent foolish, unserious, and mendacious comments.
Herewith, then, a piece from someone who knows what he is talking about. I copied it from this location.
Jihad vs. Crusade
Bernard Lewis/Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28, 2001
U.S. President George W. Bush's use of the term "crusade" in calling for a powerful joint effort against terrorism was unfortunate, but excusable. In Western usage, this word has long since lost its original meaning of "a war for the cross," and many are probably unaware that this is the derivation of the name. At present, "crusade" almost always means simply a vigorous campaign for a good cause. This cause may be political or military, though this is rare; more commonly, it is social, moral or environmental. In modern Western usage it is rarely if ever religious.
Yet "crusade" still touches a raw nerve in the Middle East, where the Crusades are seen and presented as early medieval precursors of European imperialism — aggressive, expansionist and predatory. I have no wish to defend or excuse the often-atrocious behavior of the crusaders, both in their countries of origin and in the countries they invaded, but the imperialist parallel is highly misleading. The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad — a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war.
At the time of the Crusades, when the Holy Land and some adjoining regions in Syria were conquered and for a while ruled by invaders from Europe, there seems to have been little awareness among Muslims of the nature of the movement that had brought the Europeans to the region. The crusaders established principalities in the Levant, which soon fitted into the pattern of Levantine regional politics. Even the crusader capture of Jerusalem aroused little attention at the time, and appeals for help to various Muslim capitals brought no response.
The real countercrusade began when the crusaders — very foolishly — began to harry and attack the Muslim holy lands, namely the Hijaz in Arabia, containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina where Muhammad was born, carried out his mission, and died. In the vast Arabic historiography of the Crusades period, there is frequent reference to these invaders, who are always called "Franks" or "infidels." The words "Crusade" and "crusader" simply do not occur.
They begin to occur with increasing frequency in the 19th century, among modernized Arabic writers, as they became aware of Western historiography in Western languages. By now they are in common use. It is surely significant that Osama bin Laden, in his declaration of jihad against the United States, refers to the Americans as "crusaders" and lists their presence in Arabia as their first and primary offense. Their second offense is their use of Arabia as a base for their attack on Iraq. The issue of Jerusalem and support for "the petty state of the Jews" come third.
The literal meaning of the Arabic word "jihad" is striving, and its common use derives from the Quranic phrase "striving in the path of God." Some Muslims, particularly in modern times, have interpreted the duty of jihad in a spiritual and moral sense. The more common interpretation, and that of the overwhelming majority of the classical jurists and commentators, presents jihad as armed struggle for Islam against infidels and apostates. Unlike "crusade," it has retained its religious and military connotation into modern times.
Being a religious obligation, jihad is elaborately regulated in sharia law, which discusses in minute detail such matters as the opening, conduct, interruption and cessation of hostilities, the treatment of prisoners and noncombatants, the use of weapons, etc. In an offensive war, jihad is a collective obligation of the entire community, and may therefore be discharged by volunteers and professionals. In a defensive war, it is an individual obligation of every able-bodied Muslim.
In his declaration of 1998, Osama bin Laden specifically invokes this rule: "For more than seven years the United States is occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories, Arabia, plundering its riches, overwhelming its rulers, humiliating its people, threatening its neighbors, and using its bases in the peninsula as a spearhead to fight against the neighboring Islamic peoples." In view of this, "to kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who can, in any country where this is possible, until the Aqsa mosque and the Haram mosque are freed from their grip, and until their armies, shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the lands of Islam, incapable of threatening any Muslim."
Muhammad himself led the first jihad, in the wars of the Muslims against the pagans in Arabia. The jihad continued under his successors, with a series of wars that brought the Middle East, including the Holy Land, under Arab Muslim rule and then continued eastward into Asia, westward into Africa, and three times into Europe — the Moors in Spain, the Tatars in Russia, the Turks in the Balkans. The Crusade was part of the European counterattack. The Christian reconquest succeeded in Spain, Russia and eventually the Balkans; it failed to recover the Holy Land of Christendom.
In Islamic usage the term martyrdom is normally interpreted to mean death in a jihad, and the reward is eternal bliss, described in some detail in early religious texts. Suicide is another matter.
Classical Islam in all its different forms and versions has never permitted suicide. This is seen as a mortal sin, and brings eternal punishment in the form of the unending repetition of the act by which the suicide killed himself. The classical jurists, in discussing the laws of war, distinguish clearly between a soldier who faces certain death at the hands of the enemy, and one who kills himself by his own hand. The first goes to heaven, the other to hell. In recent years, some jurists and scholars have blurred this distinction, and promised the joys of paradise to the suicide bomber. Others retain the more traditional view that suicide in any form is totally forbidden.
Similarly, the laws of jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter. The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm noncombatants, women and children, "unless they attack you first." Even such questions as missile and chemical warfare are addressed, the first in relation to mangonels and catapults, the other to the use of poison-tipped arrows and poisoning enemy water supplies. Here the jurists differ — some permit, some restrict, some forbid these forms of warfare. A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce.
What the classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New York two weeks ago. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam. Indeed it is difficult to find precedents even in the rich annals of human wickedness.
—
Mr. Lewis is professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
So boys don't you start your ramblin' around/ On this road of sin are you sorrow bound/ Take my advice or you'll curse the day/ You started rollin' down that lost highway.
Perhaps you noticed this too. President Obama refuses to use 'Islamic' in connection with the Islamic State or 'Muslim' in connection with Muslim terrorists. But he has no problem with pinning the deeds of crusaders and inquisitors on Christians. This is a double standard.
Surely, if no true Muslim beheads journalists or crucifies children, then no true Christian commits deeds of equal moral depravity.
A while back Obama made the surprising statement that "ISIL is not Islamic." What was the reasoning behind Obama's statement? Perhaps this:
1. All religions are good. 2. Islam is a religion. Ergo 3. Islam is good. 4. ISIL is not good. Ergo 5. ISIL is not Islamic.
But then, by parity of reasoning,
1. All religions are good. 2*. Christianity is a religion. Ergo 3*. Christianity is good. 4*. The Crusades/Inquisition were not good. Ergo 5*. The Crusades/Inquisition were not Christian.
But far worse than Obama's double standard is his profound historical ignorance which any number of commentators have exposed, John Hinderaker, for example.
This is a revised post from September, 2009. Thanks to V.V. for his interest.
……………….
A great deal could be said on this topic. Here are a few thoughts that may be helpful. Test them against your own experience.
1. Make good use of the morning, which is an excellent time for such activities as reading, writing, study, and meditation. But to put the morning to good use, one must arise early. I get up at 2:00, but you needn't be so monkish. Try arising one or two hours earlier than you presently do. That will provide you with a block of quiet time. Fruitful mornings are of course impossible if one's evenings are spent dissipating. But it is not enough to avoid dissipation. One ought to organize one's evening so as to set oneself up for a fruitful morning's work. Alphonse Gratry makes some excellent suggestions in section V of his "The Sources of Intellectual Light" (1862), the last book of his Logic (trs. Helen and Milton Singer, Open Court, 1944). One of them is, "Set yourself questions in the evening; very often you will find them resolved when you awaken in the morning." (532) Gratry has in mind theoretical problems. His advice is compatible with Schopenhauer's: One should never think about personal problems, money woes, and other such troubles at night and certainly not before bed.
2. Abstain from all mass media dreck in the morning. Read no newspapers. "Read not The Times, read the eternities." (Thoreau) No electronics. No computer use, telephony, TV, e-mail, etc. Just as you wouldn't pollute your body with whisky and cigarettes upon arising, so too you ought not pollute your pristine morning mind with the irritant dust of useless facts, the palaver of groundless opinions, the bad writing of contemporary scribblers, and every manner of distraction. There is time for that stuff later in the day if you must have it. The mornings should be kept free and clear for study that promises long-term profit.
3. Although desultory reading is enjoyable, it is best to have a plan. Pick one or a small number of topics that strike you as interesting and important and focus on them. I distinguish between bed reading and desk reading. Such lighter reading as biography and history can be done in bed, but hard-core materials require a desk and such other accessories as pens of various colors for different sorts of annotations and underlinings, notebooks, a cup of coffee, a pot of coffee . . . .
4. If you read books of lasting value, you ought to study what you read, and if you study, you ought to take notes. And if you take notes, you owe it to yourself to assemble them into some sort of coherent commentary. What is the point of studious reading if not to evaluate critically what you read, assimilating the good while rejecting the bad? The forming of the mind is the name of the game. This won't occur from passive reading, but only by an active engagement with the material. The best way to do this is by writing up your own take on it. Here is where blogging can be useful. Since blog posts are made public, your self-respect will give you an incentive to work at saying something intelligent.
5. An illustration. Right now I have about a half-dozen projects going. One is an article for publication in a professional journal on the philosophy of Milton K. Munitz. What I have been doing very early in the morning is studying and taking notes on four of his books that are relevant to my project. I write these notes and quotations and criticisms into a journal the old-fashioned way. Like I said, no electronics early in the morning. Computer is off and internet connection as well. This eliminates the temptation to check e-mail, follow hyperlinks, and waste time. Later in the day I incorporate these hand-written notes into a long blog post I am writing. When that post is finished and published and I receive some comments, I will then write up the post as a formal article and send it to a journal.
The beauty of this is that one has something to show for the hours spent studying. One has a finished product in which one's thoughts are organized and preserved and to which one can refer later.
6. How keep track of a vast amount of resources? A weblog can be useful as an on-line filing cabinet. I also keep a daily journal.
But the West is in grave danger. Attacked from without, she is also collapsing from within under the weight of her own decadence. Can we and it survive? The short answer is that, while we are running on fumes, they are rich and voluminous and long-lasting. It will take some time before they and we peter out. So there is still time to take action. Decline is not inevitable. But do we have the will?
I suggested earlier that we think of abbreviations as a genus that splits into three coordinate species: acronyms, initialisms, and truncations with the specific differences as follows:
An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from either the initial letters of two or more words, or from contiguous letters of two or more words. For example, 'laser' is a pronounceable word formed from the initial letters of the following words: light, amplification, stimulated, emission, radiation. And Gestapo is a pronounceable word formed from contiguous letters of the following words: geheime, Staats, Polizei.
An initialism is a string of contiguous letters, unpronounceable as a word or else not in use as a word, but pronounceable as a list of letters, formed from the initial letters of two or more words. For example, 'PBS' is an initialism that abbreviates 'Public Broadcasting System.' 'PBS' cannot be pronounced as a word, but it can be pronounced as a series of letters: Pee, Bee, Ess. 'IT' is an initialism that abbreviates "information technology.' In this case 'IT' is pronounceable as a word, but is not in use as a word. You can say, 'Mary works in Eye-Tee,' but not, 'Mary works in IT.' The same goes for 'ASU' which abbreviates 'Arizona State University.'
A truncation is a term formed from a single word by shortening it. 'App,' for example is a truncation of 'application,' and 'ho' is presumably a truncation of 'whore' (in black idiom). 'Auto' is a truncation of 'automobile,' and 'blog' (noun) of 'weblog.'
Malcolm Chisholm in an e-mail comment objects to my taxonomy, claiming that the classification looks like this:
While my scheme probably has defects of which I am not aware, Dr. Chisholm's scheme is open to objection. He tells us that a truncation is "formed by taking the first part of each word." But then 'laser' and Gestapo are truncations, which can't be right. There is no word of which 'laser' is the truncation as there is a word of which 'hood' is the truncation ('neighborhood'). Chisholm also tells us that an acronym is "formed by taking the first letter of each word." But Gestapo and Stasi are not formed by taking the first letter of each word. Stasi is formed from the first three letters of Staat and the first two letters of Sicherheit. (By the way, the Stasi was much worse than the Gestapo, according to Simon Wiesenthal.) And what about 'sonar'? It takes two letters from 'sound' and one each from 'navigation' and 'ranging.'
What's more, I see no point in making acronym superordinate to pronounceable acronym. That strikes me as a distinction without a difference, i.e., a merely verbal distinction. As I see it, 'pronounceable acronym' is a pleonastic expression. But I will irenically grant that there may be no fact of the matter here and that we can slice this bird in equally acceptable ways. Those who classify the initialism 'SBNR' ('spiritual but not religious') — the initialism that got me on this jag in the first place — as an acronym are free to do so. But I prefer not to since every example of an acronym I can think of is pronounceable.
Perhaps I can appeal to parsimony. My scheme is simpler than Chisholm's. His Porphyric tree sports three branchings; mine only two.
But perhaps I am making some mistake here. What is wrong with my taxonomy if anything is wrong with it? But I'm no linguist; I'm merely a philosopher who thinks it wise to attend carefully to ordinary language while avoiding the aberration known as Ordinary Language philosophy.
Old Ed pulls no punches. In response to Peter Singer's claim that "sex raises no unique moral issues at all," Feser remarks, "I have long regarded this as one of the most imbecilic things any philosopher has ever said." I agree. Feser goes on to make a number of important points.
This from a graduate student whose paper I posted:
Shortly after you posted my paper, I got an email from a friend who also reads your blog. My friend wondered if this was, all things considered, bad for my chances on the job market. He thinks in this age of Google searches, having my name come up on your blog will be viewed negatively by some hiring committees, given that most are leftists. It is completely absurd to me that someone might chuck my application in the trash just because they see a serious metaphysics post on a blog that defends conservative views some of the time, and I'm quite happy to have my name associated with yours, but I was wondering what you thought.
Might it be better to change the post and title a little so it doesn't mention my full name? If it is indeed true that some departments would not hire me because of this post, there is a significant part of me that doesn't want to work with such people anyway, but then there is another part of me that loves teaching philosophy enough that I'd be willing to try to put up with such people, at least for a while. I don't know. I'm not terribly worried about it at this moment, since I won't be on the job market until fall of 2016.
I did remove the author's name out of concern for his prospects. I suspect his friend has a better understanding of how bad things have become than he does. The universities have become leftist seminaries. The few exceptions prove the rule. And where there are leftists there is political correctness and the party line. Anyone who refuses to toe it, anyone who thinks independently and critically and speaks out against leftist excesses and outright inanities runs a serious career risk. But even if one does not speak out, and is only tenuously associated with a website that publishes some conservative material, one is at risk.
I've made mine, so I can afford to speak the truth. A little courage is involved, but not much. I cannot recommend that people who are young or starting out take career-destroying risks. And I ought not expose them to danger. Never underestimate how vicious and vindictive leftists can be. The case of Brian Leiter is very instructive. Details of some of his recent antics here.
And don't ever underestimate the lengths of lunacy to which lefties will go. Recent example: CUNY. Morris Raphael Cohen must be rolling over in his grave.
Graduate students in a philosophy department somewhere in the English-speaking world did some online sleuthing about a job candidate for a position in their department, and learned that the candidate seems to hold views they find offensive. In particular, they found reports (including alleged quotes) that the candidate had expressed in online fora the view that homosexual acts and premarital sex are immoral.
It is a good thing Immanuel Kant did not apply to this department. He holds that "Every form of sexual indulgence, except in marriage, is a misuse of sexuality and so a crimen carnis." (Lectures on Ethics, tr. Infield, Hackett, p. 169.)
Intellectual and moral growth is not less indispensable than material amelioration. Knowledge is a viaticum; thought is of primary necessity; truth is nourishment as well as wheat. A reason, by fasting from knowledge and wisdom, becomes puny. Let us lament as over stomachs, over minds which do not eat. If there is anything more poignant than a body agonizing for want of bread, it is a soul which is dying of hunger for light. (Les Miserables)
I wanted to bring to your attention a passage I came across in Nicholas Rescher’s Philosophical Standardism (Pittsburgh, 1994):
“The old saying is perfectly true: Philosophy bakes no bread. But it is also no less true that we do not live by bread alone. The physical side of our nature that impels us to eat, drink, and be merry is just one of its sides. Homo sapiens requires nourishment for the mind as urgently as nourishment for the body. We seek knowledge not only because we wish, but because we must. The need for information, for knowledge to nourish the mind, is ever bit as critical as the need for food to nourish the body.” (p. 67)
I was struck by what I believed was the distinctively Vallicellan retort, “But it is also no less true that we do not live by bread alone.” I’m curious: Is this a well-known retort among philosophers? If not, did you get that from Rescher, he from you, or is this just an instance of great minds thinking alike?
To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such responses are patently lame. You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school." You should not acquiesce in the philistine's values and assumptions, but go on the attack and question his values and assumptions. Put him on the spot. Play the Socratic gadfly. If a philistine wants to know how much you got paid for writing an article for a professional journal, say, "Do you really think that only what one is paid to do is worth doing?"
I wouldn't say that the not-by-bread-alone retort is standard among philosophers, especially not now when Christianity is on the wane and one cannot assume that philosophers have read the New Testament. Professor Rescher, of course, knows the verse at Matthew 4:4.
I didn't get the retort from Rescher: Philosophical Standardism is not a book of his that I have read. The retort occurred to me independently as I am sure it has occurred independently to many of a certain age and upbringing.
And of course Rescher did not get the line from me since his book was published in 1994 long before the blogosphere.
And it is not a case of great minds thinking alike since neither of our minds are great. It is more like above-average minds thinking alike, though I concede his to be more above-average than mine.
Is there anyone in philosophy more prolific than Rescher? Here is a list of just his books. Forty years ago I heard the joke about the Nicholas Rescher Book-of-the-Month Club. And he is still happily scribbling away. Here is another Rescher joke:
A student goes to visit Professor Rescher. Secretary informs her that the good doctor is not available because he is writing a book. Student replies, "I'll wait."
Apparently, Paul does not understand the concept of hypocrisy.
After Jeb Bush admitted to smoking marijuana during his prep school days, Rand Paul called him a hypocrite on the ground that he now opposes what he once did.
But this accusation shows a failure on Paul's part to grasp the concept of hypocrisy. An adequate definition must allow for moral change. One who did not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses ought not be called a hypocrite; the term 'hypocrite' applies to one who does not attempt to live up to the ideals he now espouses.
See my category Hypocrisy for more on this philosophically juicy theme.
The curiosity to the left, sent to me without commentary by the inscrutable and seldom seen Seldom Seen Slim, raises a number of deep and fascinating questions.
The sentence to the left can be read either literally or metaphorically. My analysis in this entry is concerned with a literal reading only.
1. If nothing is written in stone, then no sentence is written in stone. But the sentence to the left is written in stone. Therefore, it is not the case that nothing is written in stone. Therefore, the sentence to the left, if true, is false. And if it is false, then of course it is false. (Our sentence is not like the Liar sentence which, if true is false, and if false is true.) Therefore, whether the stone sentence is true or false, it is false. Therefore, it is necessarily false, and its negation — 'Something is written in stone' — is necessarily true. (Bivalence is assumed.)
But this is paradoxical! For while it is the case that the sentence is false it could have been true. For it is possible that nothing ever have been written in stone. Therefore, it is not the case that the sentence in question is necessarily false. Something has gone wrong with my analysis. What has gone wrong, I think, is that I have failed to observe a distinction I myself have drawn in earlier entries between propositional self-refutation and performative self-refutation.
2. Consider 'There are no true propositions.' This is a proposition and it is either true or false. If true, then false. And if false, then false. So necessarily false. This is a clear example of propositional self-refutation. The proposition refutes itself by itself. No human act or performance comes into the picture. 'There are no assertions' is quite different. This is either true or false. And we know it is false as a matter of contingent fact. But it is not self-refuting because if it were true it would not follow that it is false. It does not refute itself by itself. For if it were true that there are no assertions, then it would be true that there are no assertions. (Compare: if it were true that that there are no true propositions, then it would be false that there are no true propositions.)
All we can say is that 'There are no assertions,' while it can be asserted, cannot be asserted with truth. For the performance of assertion falsifies it. We thus speak here of performative inconsistency or performative self-refutation. The truth of 'There are no assertions,' if it is true, is assertively inexpressible. It is impossible that I, or anyone, assert, with truth, that there are no assertions; but it it does not follow that it is impossible that there be no assertions.
'I do not exist' is another example of performative self-refutation. I cannot assert, with truth, that I do not exist. For I cannot make the assertion without existing. Indeed, I can't even think the thought *I do not exist* without existing. But the impossibility of my thinking this thought does not entail the necessity of my existence. Necessarily, if I think, then I exist. But the necessity of the consequence does not transfer to the consequent. Both of the following are true and thus logically consistent: I cannot think without existing; I exist contingently. I cannot use the Cartesian cogito to show that I am a necessary being. (Nor can you.)
And similarly with 'Nothing is written in stone' inscribed in stone. The 'performance' of inscribing in stone falsifies the sentence while 'verifying' its negation: if I inscribe in stone 'Something is written in stone,' I provide a concrete instance of the existentially general sentence. (Am I punning on 'concrete'?)
My point, then, is that our lapidary example is not an example of strictly propositional self-refutation but of performative self-refutation where the performance in question is that of inscribing in stone. But why is this so interesting?
3. One reason is that it raises the question of inexpressible propositions. Interpreted literally, though perhaps not charitably, our stone sentence expresses a proposition that cannot be expressed salva veritate in stone. For if we try to express the proposition by producing an inscription in stone, we produce a sentence token whose existence falsifies the proposition. This holds in every possible world. In no world in which nothing is written in stone can this proposition be expressed in stone.
But the proposition expressed by the stone sentence can be expressed salva veritate in speech. Consider a possible world W in which it is literally true that nothing is written in stone, i.e., a world in which there are no stone inscriptions, in any language, of any declarative sentence. If a person in W assertively utters the sentence 'Nothing is written in stone,' he expresses a proposition true in W.
'There are no sayings' cannot be expressed salva veritate in speech but it can be expressed in stone.
I conclude that there are possibly true propositions which, while they are expressible, are not expressible in all media. The proposition expressed by our stone inscription above is true in some possible worlds but not expressible by stone inscriptions in any possible world.
Note also that there are actually true propositions that cannot be expressed in some media. In the actual world there is no ink that is compounded of the blood of Irishmen, 5W30 motor oil, and the urine of my cat, Max Black. So it is actually true that there is no such ink. This truth, however, cannot be expressed in writing that uses the ink in question.
A really interesting question is whether there are true propositions or possibly true propositions that are inexpressible salva veritate in every medium. I mean inexpressible in principle, not inexpressible due to our finite resources.
Buddhists typically say that all is empty and all is impermanent. Could it be true that all is empty despite the fact that this very thesis must be empty and therefore devoid of a determinate sense and a determinate truth value? Could it be true that all is impermanent despite the fact that this very thesis is impermanent?
