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.The Knight looked surprised at the question. Whatdoes it matter where my body happens to be? he said. My mind goes on working all the same.In fact, themore head downwards I am, the more I keep inventingnew things. 32For the Knight, where his body happens to be whichphysical or social environment it s in is irrelevant to his mind s working and its quiet expression in language.Indeed, theWhite Knight thinks that the further removed he is fromconversation, the greater his capacity for inventing. Giventhe absurdity of his inventions including horse s anklets to guard against the bites of sharks 33 we re evidently not sup-posed to endorse his perspective. I S THERE SUCH A THI NG AS A LANGUAGE? 113Davidson s hostility to the solipsist view drives his hostilityto the institutional view.Interestingly, however, the Alice novelsassociate the solipsist with an inventor, suggesting that it s actu-ally the invention view that suffers from lingering solipsism. There s a Nice Knock-DownArgument for You 34At this point, you might be wondering whether some grasp ofrules for language use isn t in fact necessary.For Davidson,grasp of rules is a practical crutch to interpretation, a crutch wecannot in practice afford to do without but a crutch which,under optimum conditions for communication we can inthe end throw away, and could in theory have done with-out from the start. 35 But what do the optimum conditions Davidson mentions involve? If they involve interlocutors hav-ing superhuman powers, it might be true that in theory, whensuch conditions obtain, participants in a conversation can dowithout rules.But giving weight to this seems at odds with theanti-solipsist insistence on keeping in view, when seeking tounderstand the nature of language, what is actually requiredfor communication of the sort creatures like ourselves engagein, embedded in the kinds of circumstance we find ourselves in.So, assuming optimum conditions don t involve superhumanabilities, is grasp of rules unnecessary for communication?36While Sheer invention is.possible, it s surely parasiticupon established rules.One wouldn t understand what s beingexpressed in Alice s use of curiouser or the Mock Turtle s useof uglification without a prior understanding of terms suchas curious and beautify, and so arguably a grasp of the rulesstandardly governing their use.Likewise, being unfamiliar withthe proper use of Jabberwocky s terms, Alice simply couldn tmake it out at all, needing Humpty Dumpty to explain that Brillig means four o clock in the afternoon. 37 In the absenceof guidelines, it seems, communication cannot proceed. 114 D ANI EL WHITI NGBy way of analogy, consider the Caucus-race, whose partic-ipants began running when they liked, and left off when theyliked, 38 or the Queen of Heart s croquet game, in which theredon t seem to be any rules in particular; at least, if there are,nobody attends to them. 39 It seems that for an activity tobe meaningful and purposive, some rules need to be opera-tive.(The dominant motifs of both novels are rule-governedactivities: cards and chess.)The invention view seems to assume that whether an utter-ance has meaning and what meaning it has is entirely up to thespeaker.But this smacks of solipsism, as if understanding whatyou say is fixed wholly by your intentions entirely indepen-dently of external influence.Humpty maintains such a view: There s glory for you! I don t know what you mean by glory, Alicesaid.Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. Ofcourse you don t till I tell you.I meant there s a niceknock-down argument for you! But glory doesn t mean a nice knock-down argu-ment, Alice objected. When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in arather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it tomean neither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you canmake the words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which isto be master that s all. 40This exchange makes clear that one can t simply mean byone s utterance what one chooses to mean, for meaning isn tentirely due to an isolated individual; it is influenced by exter-nal factors.Alice is not immune to Humpty s mistakes: Then you should say what you mean, the MarchHare went on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.The Knight looked surprised at the question. Whatdoes it matter where my body happens to be? he said. My mind goes on working all the same.In fact, themore head downwards I am, the more I keep inventingnew things. 32For the Knight, where his body happens to be whichphysical or social environment it s in is irrelevant to his mind s working and its quiet expression in language.Indeed, theWhite Knight thinks that the further removed he is fromconversation, the greater his capacity for inventing. Giventhe absurdity of his inventions including horse s anklets to guard against the bites of sharks 33 we re evidently not sup-posed to endorse his perspective. I S THERE SUCH A THI NG AS A LANGUAGE? 113Davidson s hostility to the solipsist view drives his hostilityto the institutional view.Interestingly, however, the Alice novelsassociate the solipsist with an inventor, suggesting that it s actu-ally the invention view that suffers from lingering solipsism. There s a Nice Knock-DownArgument for You 34At this point, you might be wondering whether some grasp ofrules for language use isn t in fact necessary.For Davidson,grasp of rules is a practical crutch to interpretation, a crutch wecannot in practice afford to do without but a crutch which,under optimum conditions for communication we can inthe end throw away, and could in theory have done with-out from the start. 35 But what do the optimum conditions Davidson mentions involve? If they involve interlocutors hav-ing superhuman powers, it might be true that in theory, whensuch conditions obtain, participants in a conversation can dowithout rules.But giving weight to this seems at odds with theanti-solipsist insistence on keeping in view, when seeking tounderstand the nature of language, what is actually requiredfor communication of the sort creatures like ourselves engagein, embedded in the kinds of circumstance we find ourselves in.So, assuming optimum conditions don t involve superhumanabilities, is grasp of rules unnecessary for communication?36While Sheer invention is.possible, it s surely parasiticupon established rules.One wouldn t understand what s beingexpressed in Alice s use of curiouser or the Mock Turtle s useof uglification without a prior understanding of terms suchas curious and beautify, and so arguably a grasp of the rulesstandardly governing their use.Likewise, being unfamiliar withthe proper use of Jabberwocky s terms, Alice simply couldn tmake it out at all, needing Humpty Dumpty to explain that Brillig means four o clock in the afternoon. 37 In the absenceof guidelines, it seems, communication cannot proceed. 114 D ANI EL WHITI NGBy way of analogy, consider the Caucus-race, whose partic-ipants began running when they liked, and left off when theyliked, 38 or the Queen of Heart s croquet game, in which theredon t seem to be any rules in particular; at least, if there are,nobody attends to them. 39 It seems that for an activity tobe meaningful and purposive, some rules need to be opera-tive.(The dominant motifs of both novels are rule-governedactivities: cards and chess.)The invention view seems to assume that whether an utter-ance has meaning and what meaning it has is entirely up to thespeaker.But this smacks of solipsism, as if understanding whatyou say is fixed wholly by your intentions entirely indepen-dently of external influence.Humpty maintains such a view: There s glory for you! I don t know what you mean by glory, Alicesaid.Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. Ofcourse you don t till I tell you.I meant there s a niceknock-down argument for you! But glory doesn t mean a nice knock-down argu-ment, Alice objected. When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in arather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it tomean neither more nor less. The question is, said Alice, whether you canmake the words mean so many different things. The question is, said Humpty Dumpty, which isto be master that s all. 40This exchange makes clear that one can t simply mean byone s utterance what one chooses to mean, for meaning isn tentirely due to an isolated individual; it is influenced by exter-nal factors.Alice is not immune to Humpty s mistakes: Then you should say what you mean, the MarchHare went on [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]