What do we do with language? Language is a social activity. The idea of illocutionary acts (e.g. promising, commanding, asserting, etc.) is the beginning of considering this notion. The nature of language is to
do something. To
do what? To interact with our environment: our peers. Language is an elaboration on a basic social space: that of multiple people coming together in the same physical space. It is an elaboration on basic gestures. Think of trying to communicate to someone who shares not a common language. Certain simple gestures are all that are available. In a very simple society basic gestures are all that are necessary, but in our technological society we must have a technological advance in our gestures: language is what is the technological advance of gesture. Language is merely complicated gesture. (It is interesting to note that such a theory [if I care to use such a "four letter word" anymore] predicts a sort of telepathy--i.e. gestures even more subtle than that of language.) But let us get back to another topic.
When we speak we tend to appear to be making categories. This is why speach or writing are difficult for me in order to make myself be understood: my very act of saying something makes the appearance of some category: the appearance that I am using some criterion as superior to the one that is the object of my critique. When I speak the conventional reader assumes that I critique old categories in favor of new, and that these new categories are implicit in my
speach. Perhaps this is not a limitation, then, of language, but a limitation of the conventional reader. But here I really am advocating a new over old: the unconventional reader over the conventional one.
I want to say that you (the reader) need to try to overcome your reaction that I am trying to advocate new categories of judgment over the old categories of True and False, Rational/Irrational, Wrong/Right, Good/Bad, etc. I.e. you need to try to take my words not as advocating
anything but merely addressing existence in it's pure form--i.e. unpartitioned, undifferentiated by any categories. But in this I am implicitly advocating the category of New Reader over Old Reader. Am I? It seems so, and indeed it isn't even very implicit but rather explicit when I come out and say it. And my above theory of language as gesture seems to be of a very conventional form: the better theory arguing against the worse.
Then it would seem that the only way to keep from contradicting myself is to contradict myself--or at the very least keep changing my mind. And this is the case in order to keep from judging the Old from the perspective of the New. Perhaps this explains the difficulty of some of the post-modern/post-structuralist writing--Lyotard, and Derrida to name a couple (i.e. the ones I have read).
Of course the post-modern (whatever) does not admit of an objective space in which to place the discourser--i.e. objective discourse is not possible: the discourser is always biased. But this is just theory, not the reality--never the reality, but the reality is the problem, but language is what we humans want to do, but language cannot (ever) be reality because language is not reality. And this would be predicted by my theory of language as gesture, but that would be cheating to say so because the theory is not the reality. Aporia!
What is the status of the above "law" of logic? This is a question that I have been sweeping aside for some months now; perhaps it won't be resolved for much longer. However, I must keep prodding the question.
At the moment I would say that it is very nearly a universal construction: just about everyone would accept it. But of course there are some who do not. And the former mock the latter for being irrational or for sloppy thinking. But "human stupidity is infinte."
A curious observation is that I cannot claim that the law of coherence is
wrong, if I am one who is suspicious of it. I do not say that the categories of the True and the False are wrong or false, because then I would be assuming their validity in making that judgement. Rather I say that I am suspicious of it. And if you can derive in me a contradiction by my statement of suspicion, then you have not refuted me but you have shown only the inadequacy of language.
(Perhaps this gets to the bottom of my response to Dr O's comment in the last entry.)
Coherence is a choice: you choose to be coherent or not to be coherent in your beliefs. You choose to subject yourself to the categories of True and False. I do not reject those categories, but I am saying that they are constructed like one makes a shelter. The bullies have partitioned the world of experience into the True and the False and if you don't conform you are labeled as Irrational, another category of the powers that be.
Not only is it a choice but it seems that choosing in favor of coherence makes using language much easier: more clear and safe--definite. You are right or you are wrong. True or False. I do not deny the benefits of this scheme: It would make my job much easier. To convince myself I need only come up with arguments (in language) which thereby lend to the idea that my position fits into the category of True. But we must ask ourselves what are the consequences of acting as if the categories of True and False are final, regardless of
how we partition the world according to those categories.
Am I trying to construct a
theory of truth or what? Foucault thinks that truth is power. He is very post-modern. That term is used too much indeed, but it does have a proper use. Jean-Francois Lyotard calls post-modernism incredulity towards meta-narratives. This is how I understand the term, and what I think is the
proper use of the term. Is what Foucault thinks a theory of truth? I do find affinity with what he says. To him, truth is power in that what is "true" is determined by a "system" put in place--e.g. scientific investigation. Science determines what is true and what is false for a large domain of our lives. Science is a meta-narrative: a framework for evaluating statements. Post-modernism, then, is skeptical of the "scientific method." In my understanding, post-modernism, tries not to offer a new "truth"--i.e. it is not skeptical of the scientific method because the method gives false results but because the method has no primacy over any other method (or meta-narrative), but science tries to put itself over all other meta-narratives and relegates them to the Other. I am just reviewing old stuff here. If post-modernism were to offer a new "truth" then somehow it would be incoherent, because that new truth would also be some form of a framework claiming absolute status.
Being as I am, I must stress that I do not wish to offer a
theory of truth, because of that which has been outlined above. I am not modern, and I cannot therefore offer a theory of truth claiming to be better than other theories. This is why I need not criticise old theories of truth directly, i.e., for theoretical reasons, rather I criticise them for other reasons. Reasons less well-defined, perhaps than theoretical reasons. It is not the case that I claim that there is something out there (i.e. "truth") which the old theories model inadequately, and I am trying to offer an alternative. No. That is not what I wish to do.
The pursuit of truth, i.e. the hero of truth is also some sort of meta-narrative: it legitimizes the pursuit of truth. My criterion of a meta-narrative is anything which legitimizes something. Perhaps this is too broad. Do not take it as a definition, for, if that was my definition than even my very writing and thinking about such things would be incoherent to my purposes, i.e. my incredulity towards meta-narratives, i.e., my post-modernism. I should not even call it a criterion for that too has the ring of a definition.
I find myself even more confused now that I have finished writing the above thoughts. For it does seem that my ideas have the ring of trying to legitimize something. But perhaps not.
It seems that whenever we ask the question, What is truth?, we end up indirectly asking the question, What statements are legitimate?, i.e. deserve our attention?, are useful? (These are all forms of legitimation: utility, deserving of attention, for example.)
So what attitude is proper when approaching this question if we are to avoid incoherence? Or are we to give up the notion of incoherence altogether? For that seems to be some sort of overarching theme which has the purpose of providing some legitimacy to what some person is saying: coherence, a.k.a., the law of non-contradiction. This is a hard line of thought. I shall finish it here, and think upon it later.
Social Construction.(Continued) The individual holds the origin of truth: within each individual resides the tendency to evaluate a state of affairs which is put forward by an utterer in a discourse context (i.e. a social space). This evaluation is something we all know of and is exemplified in the simple dialogues of the last post. This evaluation is a feeling--and this is what truth is. Hence I am not putting forward a theory of truth so much as I am
announcing a realization of what truth is.
Theory vs. Reality. In a
theory of truth one begins with a few examples of things which are true (e.g. 'Snow is white', 'Der Schnee ist weiss', etc.) and attempts to find some sort of definition which encompasses all possible examples where we would say that such and such a statement/sentence is true. But the problem with theory is that it must always remain a theory and distant from human reality, which is the only reality of which we are communally and directly aware (any other reality requires some manner of faith to uphold it). Perhaps I am thinking of the distinction between theory and practice which was talked about so much by marxist philosophers (e.g. Georg Lukács).
Now how do we get away from relativism? According to what I am saying, each person is somehow a standard of truth, but I deny that there is any
one standard of truth other than perhaps the realization that each person
is the standard. (I must be careful to be clear here--this is difficult.) But relativism is fragmented and is not conducive to community or to human life in general: there is no absolute foundation above all other pseudo-foundations, but we must not fall into the abyss of fragmentation (where there
really is gnashing of teeth) either. Ther is danger either way. So somehow I will end up saying that each person must decide what to do: no person can decide what to do for another. What is the nature of this decision? Perhaps it is a decision to live within a certain framework which at one time, and perhaps yet, claimed to be absolute, and to submit the truth of the self (the only direct, non-theoretical, truth) for the truth of the community which allows us to avoid the problem of the abyss of fragmentation.
Perhaps this is a decision which is continually being made. And I do not as yet admit that there is a right decision and a wrong one: so far there are only the implications to be considered: If one decides to devote one's self to the truth of the self then one must accept the consequences of that decision; if one decides to be devoted to the life of the community and the truth which is demarcated by that body, then one must accept the consequences of
that. These are the paths to be worked out. Both are hard: the first allows freedom of the personal spirit (the self) but causes one to be set apart from the community, the later allows one to be part of the community (thereby feeling a part of an integrated organic whole--a "loving" community) but requires the submission of the truth of the self.
