Replies

• Alfredo Pereira Jr

  27 August 2007 | 00:32

  Dear Michael:

  Thank you for the new topic and message. As you can see, the site and our group are based on a democratic proposal.
  You raise an important discussion about the meaning of words and their history.
  My position (open to discussion) is the following. In order to link brain and cognition/consciousness, it is better to use the words “cognition” and “consciousness” the way that brain and cognitive scientists do.
  Having a philosophical formation, many times I think that scientists use these words naively. However, I am sure that the progress in understanding the links is coming from their side. I have seen and heard brilliant philosophers trying to understand consciousness based on the analysis of natural language, but the results are null (and sometimes negative).
  On the other hand, even when brain scientists use words naively, the referents of their terms are something that is measurable using a precise technique (e.g., a P400 wave in an Event Related Potential study) and therefore it is possible to substitute their words while retaining the empirical results.
  Also in the post-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science the Positivist idea of philosophy correcting scientific language has been strongly rejected.
  Would you agree with me??

  Best,

  Alfredo

• Glen Sizemore

  27 August 2007 | 00:53

  When I read the following:

  “Well, my concepts of mind, cognition, and consciousness are your concepts of mind, cognition, and consciousness. Or at least, they should be; and they certainly are ordinarily.”

  I thought perhaps that there would be some grounds for agreement – at least between you and me. Indeed, I seriously considered introducing my view of conceptual issues by talking about ordinary usage. When terms are ordinary, nothing is more important than considering ordinary usage. I consider such considerations to be, perhaps, the single most important contribution of some modern philosophies, particularly Wittgenstein’s (“later Wittgenstein,” of course), as well as Skinner’s. Most of what is wrong with much of philosophy, as well as mainstream psychology and the fields it has corrupted, is that it constitutes an affront to ordinary usage. Instead of taking ordinary usage seriously, these fields merely reify ancient academic fictions. My hopes for some common ground were shattered by:

  “And not only are ‘mind’, ‘cognition’, and ‘consciousness’ common-or-garden words, but their meanings are available in any English dictionary – though when doubts or inconsistencies arise, it’s always a good idea to check more than one.”

  Dictionaries give definitions, and definitions often merely reflect the tired assumptions that constitute mainstream academic philosophy. This is not to say that they are totally worthless, but often they are nearly so. This is because they, at best, only hint at usage – often they simply define the terms by pointing to other words that are themselves in need of explication, and often such explication involves the use of the original terms. For example, “attention” is offered as a synonym for “mind, but we are told, upon looking up attention, that it is, the act or state of attending especially through applying the mind to an object of sense or thought.

  Let us consider your further elaboration:
  “Words have a history and associations, which for those who use them contribute an important part of the meaning, not least because their effect is unconsciously felt rather than intellectually apprehended.”

  Here, you raise an important issue that is, I think, inconsistent with much of your earlier writing. The phrase “history and associations” hints at a meaning of meaning; to elucidate “meaning” one must specify the causes of utterances, and the causes of utterances lie in a person’s history. It is only because some aspects of our histories are shared that “language” is effective. The relevant history is almost always obscure for any individual, but examining usage allows some guesses. For example, consider the definition “seeing is the construction and utilization of neural representations of the world.” But consider the person who uttered such might also say “My dog saw a cat and bolted into the road.” Here we see the divergence of definition and meaning. The person who remarks upon his dog in ordinary discourse is not responding to the construction or existence of a “representation” but is, in fact, putting a name to the dog’s behavior in context. And, no doubt, the meaning is “unconscious,” but the notion that it is caused by a feeling is academic philosophy. The causes of the utterance include the history supplied by the person’s culture (specifically the reinforcement contingencies that have shaped the behavior) and the current context that is the proximate cause (i.e., discriminative stimulus) of the utterance.

  Finally, let us consider:

  “The foregoing is a quote from the classicist W.K.C. Guthrie. (The emphases, however, are my own.) Now, what is it about human anatomy and physiology – perhaps especially, though not exclusively, neuroanatomy – that seems to make that quote so very interesting?”

  We do not know what it is about “neuroanatomy” that makes the quote interesting. To know that would amount to understanding how physiology mediates operant behavior, and we are about at the level where we can say, sort of, how to explain, physiologically, the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia. But we can say something about aspects of the causal chain – utterances are a function of the person’s relevant verbal history.

  Cordially,
  Glen

• Michael Bland

  29 August 2007 | 23:35

  Thanks very much to both of you for your responses. And the first thing I’d like to say in reply is that it’s clear you both write an awful lot faster than I do.

  Even then, I still make mistakes. And I updated my first posting with a reference to behaviour (including linguistic behaviour) just as soon as I’d realised what I’d left out.

  Now here’s something that you both left out: I suggested, in the second paragraph of my posting, that getting to grips with the nature of language is surely crucial to your purposes. For if one has no grasp of the nature of language, then discussing the topics you’re discussing is a bit like discussing the function of the heart (I mean the bodily organ) without having any grasp of the circulation of blood, or even of the notion of a pump. And I must say I think my comparison is very poor indeed. (I reckon what makes it just about pass muster for me are certain associations of the word ‘heart’; for that word, of course, is not used only to mean the organ which pumps blood.) But the fact that that’s about the best comparison I can come up with is perhaps an indication of how sui generis the isssue of the nature of language is.

  Maybe you omitted reference to the content of that second paragraph because you believe that an understanding of the nature of language is, for the moment, too unrealistic to contemplate. And maybe in any case you don’t want to contemplate it because you feel it’s not within your professional remit. Well, as for that second point, I’ve already indicated that it surely needs to be within your remit: in needs to be within your remit just as surely as it needs to be within the remit of a heart surgeon to understand the operation of heart valves. As for the first point, I believe I can show that the nature of language is more readily within your grasp than you might imagine.

  Indeed I believe the nature of language is more readily within the grasp of scientists such as yourselves than modern-day philosophy academics. But, just like the majority of philosophy academics who go on about consciousness, I think it’s a big problem that with respect to the remit of this group (and the very name of the group is a clear indication of this) you’ve got the brain on the brain, so to speak.

  Please don’t be insulted by what I just wrote. For I believe I’m using that play on meaning to make a very serious and indeed crucial point. (Clearly, and as I indicated in my first posting, the word ‘brain’ has more than one sense: it doesn’t always refer to the bodily organ, as you’ll find reflected in any half-decent dictionary’s entry for that word.) And I’m going to indicate the explanation of the point by making reference to something Alfredo wrote in his response.

  You indicate, Alfredo, that you want to link brain (you mean the functioning of the bodily organ, of course) and cognition/consciousness. But what I would ask is this: Why don’t you just say you’d like to link brain and psyche? For cognition/consciousness is an aspect of the human psyche; and no knowledgeable person in their right mind would dispute that understanding the workings of the human nervous system must be somehow crucial – if only it were known how – to a full and proper understanding of the general character and make-up of the human psyche. (Nb. I’m not thinking only of the individual human psyche: eg. there is the question of why the human political spectrum, Left and Right, has the particular polarity and character that it has. And with especial regard – though not exclusive regard – to certain extreme political leaders familiar to all, I’m thinking in terms of certain disorders mental, on the one hand, and developmental, on the other hand: I myself show features of one of these disorders of the will; and the name ‘autism’ – coined almost exactly a century ago by Eugen Bleuler – is common to both.) So why stop at cognition/consciousness? I believe I know why; but before I express my belief, I’m going to make a comparison.

  Somewhere in his book The Ascent of Man, the polymath Jacob Bronowski writes: “The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.” I think that’s very good. And what one immediately tends to think of with respect to that statement, especially with the reference to a cutting edge, is the stupendous dexterity of the human hand. Indeed, just look at the language we use (and surely the following pattern is not a peculiarity of English): we apprehend – we grasp, seize, gather, glean, catch on to, get hold of, get to grips with – by hand and by mind; we talk of manual and mental dexterity, adroit handling and thinking, brachial and verbal articulation. But what’s tending to get ignored here is another role, and a far more crucial role, of the human hand; and this role does not bear comparison to the mind. (Note that I indicate, at the very end of this paragraph, that even language itself conspires to obscure this crucial role; and in the same way, straightforward language – as opposed to poetical or allegorical use of language – tends to conspire to obscure a fundamental aspect of the human psyche that is not of the human mind.) For note that, at least insofar as the enterprise and creativity of our use of our two hands together is concerned (at least in the case where one lacks a good, solid, grounding for one’s work, such as a good, solid, well-founded workbench or writing desk), it is of course typically the left human hand that crucially supports, braces, or undergirds – it forms the all-important background to – the work of our normally more dominant and dexterous right, right?

  I emphasised the work ‘background’ in the previous sentence for a very good reason. For famously, Wittgenstein compared words with tools. And indeed there’s hard archaeological and palaeontological evidence that the typical polarity of hominid handedness has obtained for the past two million (or more) tool using years of our evolution. Not so famously, however, Wittgenstein also wrote the following isolated remark (the translation is my own): “Perhaps the ineffable – what I find mysterious and am not able to enunciate – is the background against which whatever I could enunciate has its meaning.”

  Now to most people – including experts such as yourselves – the relationship between the human nervous system and the human psyche is utterly mysterious to begin with. And the mystery sans pareil is the feeling of consciousness or mental awareness in the waking human head. (As you read these words silently to yourself, it will surely come naturally to you to reflect on the aforementioned feeling of inner awareness – or self-awareness, if you prefer – right now.) And I believe that’s the reason, Alfredo, why you express this special interest in consciousness/cognition. For probably you feel that if this nut can be cracked, then much else will come along with it. And actually I don’t entirely disagree with that. But where we would differ, I’ve no doubt, is that the nut will begin to be cracked by understanding anything about the brain at all. Indeed, as I half-indicated with my play on meaning five paragraphs back, I believe I can show that the beginning of the solution to the problem depends upon one getting the brain briefly out of one’s head, so to speak. And if you would take a look at the prologue of Not Right – an article linked to on my profile page – I hope you may find a half-cracked nut there waiting for you.

  Incidentally, the last two items in the ‘Projects’ section of my profile are a tacit reference to Wittgenstein. (I elaborate on this in Not Right – Part 2.) He referred to the need for a change in thinking as decisive as, for example, that from the alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. (He also mentioned that the establishment of the new way of thinking, ‘die neue Denkweise’, would be dependent upon the elaboration of a new form of expression, ‘eine neue Ausdrucksweise’.) But I prefer a different comparison – one which is sublimely symbolic. And I’d welcome the opportunity to empirically demonstrate the significance of my preference. My proposed experiment could be conducted via Nature Network.

  I’d just like to respond to your last point. I’m no more out to ‘correct’ scientific language than, say, artistic language. At least in the medium of English, scientific language is as much a part of English as any other part; and I’m certainly not out to ‘correct’ the English language. But I am out to correct certain kinds of occasional misuse of language. (Eg. In the second and third sentences of this paragraph, my use of scare quotes around the word ‘correct’ is an implied correction.) Of course it’s open to anyone – just as it was to Humpty Dumpty – to use language however they want. But even Humpty Dumpty didn’t, in fact, change the meanings of the words he used; he just said that the words he used had the meanings he wanted them to have. And that’s mere flag-waving. Also I don’t agree that, at least ordinarily, scientists use words such as ‘consciousness’ and ‘cognition’ – either passively or actively – in a special way at all. It’s only on certain occasions – especially in a professional capacity – that they may tend, systematically, to misuse them. And they’re certainly not alone in that respect. (My proposed experiment, mentioned above, is very capable of demonstrating this.)

  The kind of corrections I’m trying to effect are more than mere linguistic corrections: I believe they’re corrections of metaphysics. (Wittgenstein wrote that the characteristic of a metaphysical question is that we express an unclarity about the grammar of words in the form of a scientific question. And by ‘grammar of words’ I believe he meant simply the way in which words are used – except, that is, for when we use words in unwitting expression of our unclarity about their use, as when we simply and unwittingly misuse them.)

  Of course the meanings of most words change over time. (In note 12 of Not Right, I refer to a word whose basic meaning has surely never changed, and surely never will change; and indeed even the morphology of the word’s expression, especially as used by small children, is surely unchanged since the word’s origin – an awful long time ago, I believe.) And these changes may be for good or ill. But if you want a radical change of meaning to be a good change, then you’d better have very good reasons for it. (You’ll also need to be extremely patient!) I acknowledge that, for example, the use of the concept of information processing in so-called cognitive psychology has effected language change; but it isn’t a radical change, and it isn’t consistent with the misguided thinking behind the aforementioned use of that concept: people will now say that they’re ‘processing’ something which they’ve seen or heard, for example, and what they mean by that is that they’re taking it in and reflecting on it. So this new use (which is fine) has nothing whatsoever to do with the workings of that bodily organ, the brain – though of course, for many, it tends occasionally to appear to.

  What you call my elaboration, Glen, is a quote from W.K.C. Guthrie. And you appear to have misread it. The beginning of the quote expressly refers to the history and associations of words. (The beginning of the quote doesn’t refer to the history and associations of individuals in respect of their particular uses of words.) So the word ‘history’ in the quote refers to etymology. (As for ‘associations’, I gave an indication of certain of a word’s associations – namely of the word ‘heart’ – in the third paragraph of this posting.) I’m not sure what you might intend to mean by ‘meaning of meaning’, but certainly a word’s etymology is not the same thing as a word’s meaning. Rather, a word’s etymology is (an account of) facts relating to its formation and the development of its meaning.

  Nonetheless, I naturally agree that it’s only because some aspects of our personal histories are shared that language is effective. (Though I don’t know why you put the word ‘language’ in scare quotes; and I’d say the same with regard to the word ‘meaning’ in the previous sentence of your posting.) Clearly, if we three didn’t have English-language-oriented histories, then we wouldn’t be able to communicate in the language we are in fact now using to communicate.

  The Guthrie quote goes on to refer to “an important part of the meaning” to which, for those who use them, words’ histories and associations contribute. (Clearly, that reference to use should not be understood to refer also to the kind of misuse I’m out to draw attention to and correct; for in the case of such misuse, a word and its meaning effectively part company.) And, the quote continues further, this contribution to meaning is made not least because the effect of words’ histories and associations are unconsciously felt – as opposed to being intellectually apprehended – by those who use the words. The quote doesn’t say anything about ‘unconscious’ meaning (whatever that might be); nor does it say anything about meaning being ‘caused by’ a feeling (whatever that might mean). The word ‘because’ is used; but the meaning of ‘because’ doesn’t normally – and it certainly doesn’t necessarily – involve the notion of cause. The two words, ‘because’ and ‘cause’, merely share some letters.

  I don’t suggest for a moment that reference to dictionaries will solve all problems of language use. But it’s not a bad start. (Fortunately dictionaries are normally compiled by lexicographers, not by philosophy academics. They consult all kinds of people, but the lexicographers have the last word.) Moreover, I’ll say again that I am concerned – perhaps even primarily concerned (because, I believe, without this everything else is on hold) – with the nature of language. And good dictionaries will usually have a small etymological entry; though why this is significant to the issue of the nature of language I’ll indicate in a moment.

  First, there’s a useful entry for ‘consciousness’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Here’s how it reads: “State of being conscious; totality of a person’s thoughts and feelings, or a class of these (moral consciousness; stream of consciousness); perception (of, that).” Now, it’s the last part of that entry that I want to draw attention to. For note that an object of consciousness – with ‘consciousness’, in this case, being understood to mean ‘perception (of, that)’ – may be consciousness itself: we can perfectly well talk about the consciousness of consciousness. So the fact that consciousness may be reflexive is, apparently, implicit to the meaning of the word ‘consciousness’. (Clearly, that should be obvious after a moment’s thought; but making reference to a good dictionary gives a more formal foundation.)

  Now let’s turn to the word ‘conscious’; and not to the meaning of the word, but to the etymology. Clearly, the major root of that word is the same as the root of ‘science’. And it’s often said that the word ‘science’ derives from the Latin word ‘scire’, meaning ‘to know’. But if one looks more closely – eg. at the entry for ‘science’ in Klein’s Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language – the meaning of Latin ‘scire’ is given as ”’to know’, which prob. meant orig. ‘to separate one thing from another, to distinguish’, and is rel. to scindere, ‘to cut, split, cleave’ ...”. And indeed – according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots – the Indo-European root of the whole lot is skei-, meaning ‘to cut, split’, which is an extension of sek-, ‘to cut’.

  Never mind for now about the explanation of the origin of that last root itself (though I believe I can make a very good suggestion in this regard, and the explanation I have in mind also involves the apparently intimately related Indo-European roots of the two English verbs ‘see’ and ‘say’); but note that the meaning of that root is the perfect complement to the meaning of this one: Indo-European ar-, ‘to join, fit together’ – this being the root of English ‘art’ (also ‘artefact’, ‘artifice’, ‘artisan’, ‘articulate’ etc.). And knowing – as one does – of certain respective artistic and scientific associations, it’s difficult not to be immediately struck by the singular appropriateness of that manifest etymological complementarity. I believe that’s an example of how one is affected – note that one isn’t actually obliged to refer to feeling, of any kind – by the history and associations of the words ‘art’ and ‘science’.

  I also believe I can make a plausible suggestion with regard to the explanation of the origin of the root of the word ‘art’. But clearly, this doesn’t look like good science; for it’s inevitably unverifiable and is readily called into question. However, there are well over a thousand fairly well established Indo-European roots of English; and once you tentatively start to put a few pegs in the ground, so to speak, they begin to form a pattern. And the overall pattern is more difficult to call into question. And the first peg in the ground is, I believe, particularly difficult to call into question – not least because there continues to be manifest behavioural evidence for it (including linguistic evidence) to this day: it’s an element of behaviour one might naturally call ‘the mother of all linguistic roots’; and I effectively identify it in Not Right, note 12.

  Showing how the roots of language can be embedded in the ground of the everyday behavioural and environmental reality of hominids is, I believe, an important step in the establishment of our understanding of the nature of language. But it doesn’t get you very far in understanding how human intelligence can sometimes be bewitched by means of language. (Evidently, it’s a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language that I believe I’m fighting. But I also believe that, wittingly or unwittingly, you’re fighting it too.)

  What one needs is a detailed picture of language: a picture that will show how a picture, painted with words, might hold human intelligence captive! (Here’s what Wittgenstein wrote, a few paragraphs after writing that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”)

  And we do indeed paint pictures with words: we paint pictures, sketch out ideas, make graphic descriptions; we depict, portray, describe, outline, delineate – all of this illustrative and illuminative stuff, sometimes visionary stuff, with words. And indeed there is a very much apparent connectedness between our language, our sense of sight, and our mental faculty of vision – if you see what I mean. (Even our ‘idea’ derives from a Greek word meaning ‘to see’. And similarly, although the etymology of ‘think’ is more complicated, it’s certainly visually oriented.) But this glaringly evident prima facie association between human language, sight, and vision certainly shouldn’t surprise us; for sight is after all our primary distance sense, so of course the human mind and the human linguistic faculty might be expected to have evolved accordingly – with this being variously manifested by the form and the figures of language itself.

  But above all, in combination with the above picture of human language, one needs to disclose the potential for the resolution of the paradox of human intellectual bewitchment. (It’s needed in any case; for even if we humans never deceived ourselves with our words, one still needs a canvas or some kind of backing on which to paint a picture!) And that’s what I believe the W.K.C. Guthrie quote shows the way for. For of course we humans are bilateral creatures: eg. not only do we have two hands, left and right, but we have two cerebral hemispheres – which have a restricted physiological interconnection. And I believe this too has an important bearing on the Guthrie quote: the two cerebral hemispheres typically have a marked difference in their relative amounts of grey versus white matter. Isn’t that right?

  Thanks very much again. And thanks also to the people behind Nature Network for the opportunity to engage in this way. (Even if it doesn’t last.) I’m not in a university; that option simply isn’t available to me – certainly not in any way that I would be able to tolerate.

  Best wishes,
  Michael

• Glen Sizemore

  01 September 2007 | 18:52

  Glen: Hi Michael,
  I was wrong in thinking that there were no points of agreement between us. There are many and, if our dialogue continues, these may become apparent. Your tone suggests that you will not take me very seriously but that’s ok. When you champion the sort of viewpoint that I, and others like me, do, one develops a “thick skin.” I will focus, for now, on the parts of your comment that seem directed to me rather than Alfredo.

  Michael: What you call my elaboration, Glen, is a quote from W.K.C. Guthrie. And you appear to have misread it. The beginning of the quote expressly refers to the history and associations of words. (The beginning of the quote doesn’t refer to the history and associations of individuals in respect of their particular uses of words.) So the word ‘history’ in the quote refers to etymology.

  Glen: No, I figured that the quote was getting at etymologies, but I thought I would turn it on its ear since, without context, it could have equally referred to the histories of individual speakers. So, there is a sense in which I did not misread it. Etymologies are enormously important, and I often talk about them, though I am no expert. More on this later.

  Michael: (As for ‘associations’, I gave an indication of certain of a word’s associations – namely of the word ‘heart’ – in the third paragraph of this posting.) I’m not sure what you might intend to mean by ‘meaning of meaning’, but certainly a word’s etymology is not the same thing as a word’s meaning. Rather, a word’s etymology is (an account of) facts relating to its formation and the development of its meaning.

  Glen: I will tell you what I mean by a “meaning of meaning.” Much has been said about meaning but it is clear that the term is used as an explanatory fiction. Words are said to express “meanings,” just as they are sometimes said to express “ideas.” But, of course, it is never clear exactly what these “things” are. But they are, nonetheless, treated as things, and it would not be surprising for mainstream psychologists, and those they have corrupted, to argue that they are “in the brain,” ultimately to be described in the dimensions relevant to neuroscience. I find this to be, literally, nonsensical, but I promised a more positive contribution; “meaning” is to be usurped by “cause.” That is, “meanings” are to be found among the determiners of utterances – they are independent variables.

  Michael: Nonetheless, I naturally agree that it’s only because some aspects of our personal histories are shared that language is effective. (Though I don’t know why you put the word ‘language’ in scare quotes; and I’d say the same with regard to the word ‘meaning’ in the previous sentence of your posting.)

  Glen: Perhaps it is becoming clear why I put these terms in scare quotes; ”language” is not to be confused with utterances, and “meaning” is not to be confused with internal causes of utterances.

  Michael: Clearly, if we three didn’t have English-language-oriented histories, then we wouldn’t be able to communicate in the language we are in fact now using to communicate.

  Glen: But what does it mean to “use a language”? And what does it mean to “communicate”? These are not rhetorical or trivial questions. We may say that a boxer “used a jab” but does the “jab” exist outside of the boxer’s behavior? When we “communicate” we engage in certain kinds of behavior, and this behavior has effects on the behavior of the listener. These are not trivial points.

  Michael: The Guthrie quote goes on to refer to “an important part of the meaning” to which, for those who use them, words’ histories and associations contribute. (Clearly, that reference to use should not be understood to refer also to the kind of misuse I’m out to draw attention to and correct; for in the case of such misuse, a word and its meaning effectively part company.) And, the quote continues further, this contribution to meaning is made not least because the effect of words’ histories and associations are unconsciously felt – as opposed to being intellectually apprehended – by those who use the words.

  Glen: I can only say that I think I am following you (which was once a metaphor, of course). Consider, for example, the word “intention.” If I remember correctly, “intention” comes from “intendre” which meant something like “to be pulled or stretched.” This is, indeed, quite important, for it shows that “mental terms” were once frank references to behavior (or its relevant circumstances). It has only been recently that “intentions” came to be things on, or in, a person’s “mind.” And let me go further. Mental terms STILL mean what they did etymologically. That is, we still observe a friend subtly reaching for the doorknob or, at least glancing and leaning in the direction, and say “John intends to leave” or “John wants to leave.” These are names for actions in context. Later, however, we learn to say things like “John’s wanting caused his behavior.” “His intention caused his behavior.” But these things are bewitchments. Or, more technically, they are things that we have been trained to say in answer to questions.

  Michael: The quote doesn’t say anything about ‘unconscious’ meaning (whatever that might be); nor does it say anything about meaning being ‘caused by’ a feeling (whatever that might mean). The word ‘because’ is used; but the meaning of ‘because’ doesn’t normally – and it certainly doesn’t necessarily – involve the notion of cause. The two words, ‘because’ and ‘cause’, merely share some letters.

  Glen: Oh…really? “Because has nothing to do with the notion of “causation”? In mainstream thinking, utterances are caused by meanings. No? If the speaker “meant something else” he or she would have said something else. What is it supposed to mean that the histories and associations “contribute an important part to the meaning”? And that this effect is “unconsciously felt”? My view, as I have made clear is that the mainstream view is an “explanatory fiction.” It seems to me this is consistent with Wittgenstein’s view.

  Michael: I don’t suggest for a moment that reference to dictionaries will solve all problems of language use. But it’s not a bad start. (Fortunately dictionaries are normally compiled by lexicographers, not by philosophy academics. They consult all kinds of people, but the lexicographers have the last word.) Moreover, I’ll say again that I am concerned – perhaps even primarily concerned (because, I believe, without this everything else is on hold) – with the nature of language. And good dictionaries will usually have a small etymological entry; though why this is significant to the issue of the nature of language I’ll indicate in a moment.

  Glen: “Language” is ambiguous. Are we talking about the corpus known as “the English language”? Or are we talking about what some people think they are talking about when they speak of “language acquisition”? I am certainly interested in the latter. I assume you are talking about the former, but it is not clear to me.

  Michael: First, there’s a useful entry for ‘consciousness’ in The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Here’s how it reads: “State of being conscious; totality of a person’s thoughts and feelings, or a class of these (moral consciousness; stream of consciousness); perception (of, that).” Now, it’s the last part of that entry that I want to draw attention to. For note that an object of consciousness – with ‘consciousness’, in this case, being understood to mean ‘perception (of, that)’ – may be consciousness itself: we can perfectly well talk about the consciousness of consciousness. So the fact that consciousness may be reflexive is, apparently, implicit to the meaning of the word ‘consciousness’. (Clearly, that should be obvious after a moment’s thought; but making reference to a good dictionary gives a more formal foundation.)

  Glen: This all seems pretty useless to me, but I’m waiting for at least one shoe to drop. BTW, consider “Your dog is conscious now Mr. Smith.” How does that fit in with your dictionary definition?

  Michael: Now let’s turn to the word ‘conscious’; and not to the meaning of the word, but to the etymology. Clearly, the major root of that word is the same as the root of ‘science’. And it’s often said that the word ‘science’ derives from the Latin word ‘scire’, meaning ‘to know’. But if one looks more closely – eg. at the entry for ‘science’ in Klein’s Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language – the meaning of Latin ‘scire’ is given as ”’to know’, which prob. meant orig. ‘to separate one thing from another, to distinguish’, and is rel. to scindere, ‘to cut, split, cleave’ …”. And indeed – according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots – the Indo-European root of the whole lot is skei-, meaning ‘to cut, split’, which is an extension of sek-, ‘to cut’.
  Never mind for now about the explanation of the origin of that last root itself (though I believe I can make a very good suggestion in this regard, and the explanation I have in mind also involves the apparently intimately related Indo-European roots of the two English verbs ‘see’ and ‘say’); but note that the meaning of that root is the perfect complement to the meaning of this one: Indo-European ar-, ‘to join, fit together’ – this being the root of English ‘art’ (also ‘artefact’, ‘artifice’, ‘artisan’, ‘articulate’ etc.). And knowing – as one does – of certain respective artistic and scientific associations, it’s difficult not to be immediately struck by the singular appropriateness of that manifest etymological complementarity. I believe that’s an example of how one is affected – note that one isn’t actually obliged to refer to feeling, of any kind – by the history and associations of the words ‘art’ and ‘science’.

  Glen: I’m afraid that I still can’t see what you are driving at.

  Michael: I also believe I can make a plausible suggestion with regard to the explanation of the origin of the root of the word ‘art’. But clearly, this doesn’t look like good science; for it’s inevitably unverifiable and is readily called into question. However, there are well over a thousand fairly well established Indo-European roots of English; and once you tentatively start to put a few pegs in the ground, so to speak, they begin to form a pattern. And the overall pattern is more difficult to call into question. And the first peg in the ground is, I believe, particularly difficult to call into question – not least because there continues to be manifest behavioural evidence for it (including linguistic evidence) to this day: it’s an element of behaviour one might naturally call ‘the mother of all linguistic roots’; and I effectively identify it in Not Right, note 12.
  Showing how the roots of language can be embedded in the ground of the everyday behavioural and environmental reality of hominids is, I believe, an important step in the establishment of our understanding of the nature of language. But it doesn’t get you very far in understanding how human intelligence can sometimes be bewitched by means of language. (Evidently, it’s a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language that I believe I’m fighting. But I also believe that, wittingly or unwittingly, you’re fighting it too.)

  Glen: mostly “wittingly,” but I’m not sure we are on the same side. Your comments to Alfredo resonate more with me than your comments to me.

  Michael: What one needs is a detailed picture of language: a picture that will show how a picture, painted with words, might hold human intelligence captive! (Here’s what Wittgenstein wrote, a few paragraphs after writing that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”)

  Glen: It seems to me that it is “modern meanings” that hold “us” captive. This is why I brought up the notion that “mental terms” were once frank references to behavior or its context. Mental things are not causes of behavior – they are largely names for behavior. But, admittedly, I’m not sure what you are driving at.

  Michael: And we do indeed paint pictures with words: we paint pictures, sketch out ideas, make graphic descriptions; we depict, portray, describe, outline, delineate – all of this illustrative and illuminative stuff, sometimes visionary stuff, with words. And indeed there is a very much apparent connectedness between our language, our sense of sight, and our mental faculty of vision – if you see what I mean. (Even our ‘idea’ derives from a Greek word meaning ‘to see’. And similarly, although the etymology of ‘think’ is more complicated, it’s certainly visually oriented.) But this glaringly evident prima facie association between human language, sight, and vision certainly shouldn’t surprise us; for sight is after all our primary distance sense, so of course the human mind and the human linguistic faculty might be expected to have evolved accordingly – with this being variously manifested by the form and the figures of language itself.
  But above all, in combination with the above picture of human language, one needs to disclose the potential for the resolution of the paradox of human intellectual bewitchment. (It’s needed in any case; for even if we humans never deceived ourselves with our words, one still needs a canvas or some kind of backing on which to paint a picture!) And that’s what I believe the W.K.C. Guthrie quote shows the way for. For of course we humans are bilateral creatures: eg. not only do we have two hands, left and right, but we have two cerebral hemispheres – which have a restricted physiological interconnection. And I believe this too has an important bearing on the Guthrie quote: the two cerebral hemispheres typically have a marked difference in their relative amounts of grey versus white matter. Isn’t that right?
  Thanks very much again. And thanks also to the people behind Nature Network for the opportunity to engage in this way. (Even if it doesn’t last.) I’m not in a university; that option simply isn’t available to me – certainly not in any way that I would be able to tolerate.

  Glen: I will continue to think about what you wrote, but I have already admitted that I’m not quite sure what you are driving at.
  Cordially,
  Glen

• Michael Bland

  04 September 2007 | 19:58

  Hi Glen,

  I’m glad you see many points of agreement between us.

  Indeed, the case you make regarding ‘intention’ is understated: even the word’s hypothetical Indo-European root, ten-, is recognised as having the meaning ‘to stretch’. And there are piles of examples of derivative words (from various languages) with the meaning ‘I stretch’, ‘he stretches’, ‘to be stretched to (tend to)’ – that last one, apparently, is the meaning of Latin ‘tendere’.

  Moreover the same point applies equally to ‘mind’. According to The Americal Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, there are four roots men-, with these respective meanings:

  1. to think – whence ‘mind’, ‘mental’, ‘mention’, ‘reminiscent’ etc.;
  2. to project – whence ‘menace’, ‘eminent’, ‘imminent’, ‘promontory’, ‘mountain’, ‘mount’ (noun & verb), and also ‘mental’ – meaning ‘of the chin’ (via Latin ‘mentum’, ‘chin’);
  3. to remain – whence ‘manor’, ‘mansion’, ‘immanent’, ‘remain’.
  4. small, isolated – whence ‘monastery’, ‘monk’, ‘mono-’, ‘manometer’.

  Make what you like of the rest, but the first two seem clearly related. (And I don’t say this purely on accont of the twin versions of English ‘mental’ – one of which many English-speaking people won’t even have heard of.) After all it’s me here whose speaking now, through my written words, and you’re just reading (and thinking about what you’re reading). So it’s as though I were speaking from a raised point, and standing alone. (I don’t see your immediate reactions.) And I’m trying to stick out, I’m trying to make myself eminent (though only for the right reasons).

  The issue of where the five-fold root itself came from is something else. And of course the same applies to the root ten-. (Although I have ideas about the origins of these roots, my primary idea regarding the origin of roots is mentioned in Not Right, note 12. I’d be interested to know if you can tell me what ‘item of behaviour’ it is that I allude to in that note.)

  As for ‘meaning’, according to the same dictionary of IE roots, the root is mei-no- meaning ‘opinion, intention’. (There are other roots, naturally, to which this may be related; and again, I have ideas about this, and also about the roots’ origins.) As for the meanings of words deriving from this root, many of those mentioned by various etymological dictionaries involve telling, saying, reciting, speaking of, signifying, stating an intention, intending, complaining of, mourning, moaning. (English ‘moan’ itself derives from the same root.)

  The above doesn’t give us a clear picture of the origin and development, up to the present, of the concept of meaning. But it looks like some kind of start. And filling in such a picture is the only sensible suggestion I can make with regard to answering the question as to the meaning of meaning (as opposed to the question as to the meaning of the word ‘meaning’).

  The “determiners of utterances” which you write of, saying that meanings “are to be found among” them, sounds to me like an aspiration to some kind of vaguely mechanistic explanation of someone’s having said the things they said. (Similarly, you also write also of “internal causes of utterances”.) And that’s not the same thing as giving the meaning of what they said. For example, I’ve just tried – in the first sentence of this paragraph – to find some sensible meaning to what you wrote about meanings. But the explanation of why you said what you said would, I believe, involve reference to all kinds of things – like your professional occupation, I suppose, and perhaps most importantly the influence of some of the crazies who you’ve been confronting over the internet. (This is a good example of what I mean: http://www.talkaboutscience.com/group/sci.psychology.consciousness/messages/3901.html)

  If someone says they’re Napoleon, for example, I don’t think it’s normally a good idea to start arguing with them about it. (Though it’s true, one may learn something important about human nature by doing so.) For one thing, if you make a habit of it – ie. confronting people who say crazy things – then you might end up tending to believe that everyone (if not openly, then secretly) is really crazy too. And actually I would agree that most normal people do say crazy things, and quite often – but academics perhaps more often than most.

  I’m starting to sound quite crazy. So I’d better quickly get to the point. You complain, quite rightly, about people who come out with metaphysical ideas about the nature of meaning, or ideas, or language. Then you effectively assume that these delusory ideas are mine too. And then you come out with your own metaphysics – involving an equally pathological misapprehension of the concept of meaning, ideas, and language – to compete with the ideas you rightly complain about.

  I couldn’t agree with you more about the relevance of behaviour and environmental context to our understanding of such concepts as meaning, ideas, and language. (But that doesn’t mean I’m going to start calling myself a behaviourist – or, for that matter, an environmental contextualist.) After all, there is nothing that I know of which I can’t bring into our immediate intellectual environment: I only need mention it. And if what I mention is something unfamiliar to you, then I can explain what I have in mind: I can try to explain what I mean by whatever it is I say.

  Here’s Wittgenstein on the meaning of a word (Philosophical Investigations, para. 560):

  ”The meaning of a word is what is explained by the explanation of the meaning.” I.e.: if you want to know the use of the word “meaning”, look for what are called “explanations of meaning”.

  But I’d be happy – indeed I’d be happier – with just the first line, and without the speech marks. Just as Wittgenstein wrote the following line, which is excellent (PI para. 367):

  The mental picture is the picture which is described when someone describes what he imagines.

  You write about a boxer’s jab, and you ask: “does the ‘jab’ exist outside of the boxer’s behaviour?’ And all I can say is I don’t understand the question. I don’t understand the idea of an ‘inside’ and an ‘outside’ of behaviour. But using those terms does present a certain picture of the concept of behaviour: as though behaviour were some kind of object within some kind of arena. (This reminds me of a tendency I’ve noticed wherein the word ‘behaviour’ is treated, wrongly, as though it were a countable noun: certain kinds of scientists, when speaking professionally, will talk about ‘a behaviour’ or about ‘behaviours’. Albeit that the spelling’s different, I presume it’s the same in North American English; indeed I presume the tendency arose there.) Anyway, I would just point out that the jab in question is, by hypothesis, the boxer’s jab.

  And incidentally, why doesn’t what you write about, say, a boxer’s jab – or about meaning, or ideas, or language – apply equally to behaviour? But all of these things are perfectly real. And if you tell me about something which is outside of the context of my behaviour (note that I’m happy to talk about things being outside, or within, the context of my behaviour), then, ipso facto, you immediately bring it within.

  As for the idea of an idea, here’s a quote from Origins: an etymological dictionary of Modern English (from the entry for ‘vide’ – the words in square brackets are hypothetical older forms): “Besides the Skt, L, OGmc words already noted, there exists Gr idein [widein], to see, oida [woida], (I have seen, hence) I know, ... ... (For Gk cognates, see the separate HISTORY and IDEA.) The IE root is weid-, to see (truly), therefore to know.”

  Again, there is the question of where that root comes from. And again, this is a question that can be addressed (along with the origin of the root of ‘know’).

  Now, if an idea is something truly seen (never mind about bad ideas), then I don’t see any problem in calling an idea a thing. Ideas are not material objects, but neither are beauty or truth material objects; and indeed, neither is behaviour a material object. (With the etymology of ‘beauty’ itself in mind, the etymology of ‘truth’ is, to my mind, particularly beautiful; the word ‘tree’ comes from the same root: meaning ‘to be firm, solid, steadfast’. Not all trees are firm, solid, and steadfast, but many are; and truth necessarily is.)

  Things generally are things we can talk about; and we can certainly talk about meaning and language. (Doubtless there are some things no-one might talk about.) In fact, the following appears in the entry for ‘thing’ in Klein’s Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language: “All these words derive stand for I.E. teŋkos, from base ten, ‘to extend (in space or in time)’, and orig. denoted ‘meeting at a fixed time’, whence developed the meaning ‘affairs, things, thing’.”

  You mention the statement “Your dog is conscious now, Mr Smith.” And you ask me how that fits in with the dictionary definition I quoted. Well, the dictionary definition I quoted was of ‘consciousness’, not of ‘conscious’. However The Concise Oxford Dictionary definition of ‘conscious’ begins thus: “Aware, knowing (of fact, of external circumstances, that, or abs.); with mental faculties awake”. So what’s the problem? If the dog is conscious, this means that the dog is awake and aware etc. As for ‘consciousness’, that definition began with these words: “State of being conscious”. So the dog, being conscious, is in a state of consciousness.

  When I wrote previously that the words ‘because’ and ‘cause’ merely share some letters, that was inaccurate; for of course they do have a common Latin origin: causa, meaning ‘cause, reason, purpose’, whose anterior etymology is uncertain. It stands perhaps for a hypothetical caud-tā, and may originally have meant ‘a striking’ (‘a jab’, even!), and would then be related to cūdere, ‘to strike, beat, knock’, from the IE root qāu-, ‘to strike, beat’.

  But notwithstanding that etymology, the fact is – as attested by any dictionary you care to consult – the meaning of Modern English ‘because’ does not involve the notion of cause: reason or account, yes; cause, no.

  You write: “In mainstream thinking, utterances are caused by meanings.” Then you effectively assume that I’m a mainstream thinker. The kind of thinking you’re thinking of is not merely wrong, it’s delusory. It appears to have something to do with a fantasy called ‘folk psychology’. The idea being that when people say they did (or said) this, that, or the other because they believed so and so, it follows that they must have a theory about their behaviour which says that their beliefs cause them to speak or act in the way they do. Of course, this is nothing but a mechanistic fantasy psychology on the part of the so-called experts who are devoted to it. It’s a manifestation of socially-shared, pathological autistic thinking.

  That’s a paradox (for ordinarily, at least, they’re intelligent people), and it stands in need of account.

  Best wishes,
  Michael