[MD] Language Games (was Theatre and Definitions)

[david buchanan]

Matt and all MOQers:

Matt Kundert said to DMB:
I stumbled across Jon Stewart's appearance on "Crossfire" the other day.  It 
was very interesting because Jon blasted the hosts of "Crossfire" (Tucker 
Carlson and the "left" guy) for lowering the level of political discourse.  
Here's a snippet:... (snippet snipped)

dmb says:
I think Jon Stewart is a genius. He's one of my favoritie dudes and it 
genuinely saddens me to miss The Daily Show. He's nearly great enough to 
make me watch the Oscars! But I'm not so sure it makes sense to compare our 
conversations to "crossfire" or any other political theater. It makes your 
feelings about the situation pretty clear.  As I see it, you are weary of 
the rivalry. You don't want it to be a constant talk-fight. My criticisms of 
your interpretation are unrelenting and unkind. I know. Its true. I 
appreciate that, but I think the rivalry is real. I think we really do hold 
opposing points of view on the MOQ. But I'm not reading off a script or 
merely trying to score points for the team. I'm trying to have a real 
conversation and to express my sincerely held views. For my own part, its 
not just a show.

Matt said:
What is a "language game"? What is a "vocabulary"?  Both are philosophical 
terms of art that basically refer to the same thing, the common sense notion 
that words have slightly different meanings depending on situation.  That 
words gain their meaning on the analogy of games, all depending on the 
implicit "rules" in place.  A "vocabulary" is roughly words that are most 
important to a particular kind of discourse.  Ad hoc distinctions between 
different language games and vocabularies helps, for instance, when a person 
says "The sun rises in the morning" and the astronomer replies, "No it 
doesn't.  The earth rotated the sun into view this morning."  We just say 
that the two people are playing two different language games, deploying two 
different vocabularies to describe the situation.  There are no discrete, 
universal distinctions between vocabularies or language games, but they can 
be useful to differentiate what's going on in two different sectors of life, 
they help us from confusing the two situations if confusion causes problems.

dmb says:
OK. Meaning depends on context. That's easy enough. The terms people use 
will have various meanings, depending on the situation. Like you say, this 
is a common sense notion. My confusion and frustration enters into the 
picture when I start to wonder what this observation means in terms of 
discussing the MOQ, when I start to wonder how this is relevant to the 
discusssion of metaphysics. I mean, what two sectors of life are confused 
here? What is being sorted out and what language game or vocabulary is 
supposed to be best for making distinctions in THIS context?

Correct me if I'm off the mark here, but isn't it true that this 
philosophical method is part of a larger anti-metaphysical project? Isn't it 
true that one of the not-so-hidden assumptions is that we are necessarily 
limited to small truths about small things? There is no way to properly 
unify or rank these various vocabularies, no way good to assert plumber talk 
over physics talk or anything else? We just say its different and menaingful 
in its own terms. Isn't that about right, even if its not very generous? 
Well, that how it seems to me; rigged to fail from the start. The game is 
fixed to preclude metaphysics or anything beyond practical purposes, to rule 
it out, am I right? Well, if that's the case, then I think its only natural 
that this would frustrate a metaphysical conversation rather than clear up 
anything. This would explain why you've not yet offered any answers about 
the right vocabulary for the discussion of metaphysics or the most 
appropriate language games in this context. And this would explain how every 
discussion gets bogged down and quickly turns into talking about talking 
rather than actually talking. Isn't there an unarticulated premise here; 
that talking about talking is all we can do? You've even gone so far as to 
make the "paradoxical" assertion that the pre-linguistic reality is produced 
by a language game. I mean, for whatever anti-metaphysical assumptions are 
or are not contained in this method, you have used it repeatedly to convert 
DQ into sq and that was just the latest attempt to explain it AWAY. Can you 
really blame me, or any MOQer,  for getting frustrated with that?

This is where I ought to remind you what prompted me to ask about "language 
games". You'd said that consciousness was created by language games.

Matt said.
Three examples:  One, the difference between the vocabulary of common sense 
and the vocabulary of physics is the difference between calling it a "chair" 
and a "cloud of electrons." Two, the difference between the vocabulary of 
physicalism and Pirsig's vocabulary of pre-conditional valuation is the 
difference between saying "A causes B" and "B values precondition A." The 
chair/cloud of electrons doesn't care whether you call it a "chair" or 
"cloud of electrons" and neither does A nor B care whether you say one 
causes the other or one values the precondition of the other. Third (and 
here's where things get a little more interesting), the difference between 
the vocabulary of Christian mysticism and that of Buddhist mysticism is that 
in the former their descriptions of the mystical experience use the word 
"God" a lot and in the latter their descriptions use "Nothingness" or 
"Emptiness."

dmb says:
That's what I was afraid of. I mean, the suggestion here seems to be that 
Christians are equal to Buddhists, that causation is no better or worse than 
the preference model and that the physicist's  describes common sense 
objects just as well as common sense. But I find it hard to believe that 
things are so interchangable and so equal and in terms of this context, it 
seems to rule anything like a hierarchy of levels. It seems to assume there 
is no way to assert any distinctions between concepts "God" and 
"Nothingness", which might be extremely important. I mean, rather than 
clarify, compare, contrast or otherwise sort things out, this method seems 
to flatten everything out into a relativistic mush where language only 
refers to language. I can see how it would be useful to be explicit about 
our terms, to be clear about the sense in which we are using them and even 
to bring in some explanations about what the term means in this context 
rather than some other. In fact, this seems to be the problem with saying 
that the Western "God" is the Eastern "Nothingness". While there is 
certainly some overlap among mystics from all the great religions, and 
that's an area I'm especially interested in, I think its a huge mistake to 
suppose there aren't radically different ideas behind these terms most of 
the time. Not to digress, I'm just saying that we need to explore these 
differences and make some calls and this method seems to tie one's hands in 
that respect.

If I may summarize; this linguistic approach to the MOQ is a real buzz 
killer, man.

Thanks.
dmb

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