A weedy florilegium


(P) You like X for X's Q.
(1) -> You [only] like X for X's Q, and no other property Z of X interests you.
(2) -> It is possible that you like X for X's Q.
(3) -> It is possible that you [only] like X for X's Q "


(2) and (3) are trivially true, and a speaker would have no motivation to assert it. It is practically irrelevant, and moreover would only suggestion shared sentiment between the speaker and the inquirer. Inquirer should only consider questions of the reasons behind (1). The speaker may be justified or unjustified in asserting (1), insofar as the speaker can be said to [know] (1). The crux of the problem here is whether (P) counts as knowledge, or if the speaker merely wishes to pass off (2) and (3) with the overt form of (1), supposing (P) properly translates to (1). (I want to consider: The speaker thinks to him or herself in asserting (P): “Let’s pretend that I know something substantial, but in truth, I have no relevant knowledge on the matter, but my language makes it look as though I do.”)

If the speaker has knowledge, then the speaker should be scrutinized insofar as that knowledge, where the inquirier is interested only in the speaker’s evidence for (1). If the speaker merely wishes to insult or criticize from bias, then the speaker may employ (2) or (3), but if the speaker wishes to speak truly, even if the speaker may fail to do so, then the speaker may employ (P) or (1). If the speaker has no knowledge, or even further, no evidence, then the speaker counts as only semantically capable to genuinely assert (2) or (3). (Measure the conceptual utility of the new concept: “semantic capability,” or “semantic rights” — what we have a right to mean; or more generally “semantic laws.” I fear “the semantic string” is of utmost relevance here.)

If the speaker has knowledge or evidence, then evidence is what is relevant. Hunches, guesses, suppositions, mere belief, pure emotional expression which happens to take on the form of language (belting out “ow!” after stubbing one’s toe), and so on, all should take treatment as if (2) or (3). Mere belief, for instance, gives you nothing to analyze in terms of justification, reason or evidence; thus, utterances of this sort are effectively equivalent to (2) or (3). “Justificatory content,” so to say, in such a case, fails to exist; but this is not to say that the statement is meaningless or generally unanalyzable. This is only to say that in terms of the analysis of knowledge, our practice will inevitably fall flat, so long as we keep to a narrow definition of knowledge such that it is defined in terms of justified true belief.

A purely psychological or emotional analysis may be in order, which appeals to the causal mechanisms of the brain and its neural inner-workings. This analysis may be consistent with our “procedure to the justificatory”; but it cannot overwrite or undermine it, without introducing harm to the ways we, in the most generic conceptual manner, treat of human behavior at the level of the mental (i.e., propositional, reason-based, etc). All this is to say: reasoned (linguistic) behavior may overlap or run in parallel to mere causal events, but both kinds of phenomena, insofar as the analysis applied, must equally be given at least a “parallel” treatment.

Analysis and interpretation must respect categorical dissimilarity (when we speak of categories, we must always “look upward” in our minds to common descent: can the thing in question have mutually excluding parents; of which the thing in question, given the contextualization of our analysis — *or “for our purposes” –, cannot — *or should not — bear entailment properties in virtue of being child to one or some other intuitively plausible parent), insofar as one phenomenon may count as a member of categories non-intersecting. We may do this, I believe, without being labelled “dualists,” for this is a analytical method which commits one to no metaphysical parent narrative. The analyst, it is my belief, has no story to tell, but only one to uncover which speaks faithfully to most generally justifiable intellectual intuition.

As usual the criticism may arise that this approach is too “pedantic,” overly dry, or whatever; the general spirit of such a criticism is that it treats so cautiously as to become careless the heart of language and its use. But I feel this criticism is ill-founded, for it ignores the outset interest of our undertaking: to go our of our way, on the assumption that it exists, to investigate language as a picture. Indeed, the owner of such a critique cannot assert as if obvious that language never grounds from a picture, or that images in language and from which language may emerge never exist. Naturally, our approach assumes a “metaphorical assumption” that language [is] in some cases chiefly image-grounded, and this assumption should be said to stand or fall given its conceptual utility (which is a cumbersome way of saying that it makes sense so long as one is attentive). That the conceptual space of language holds a region purely of images, I think, is debatable; whereas the belief that all language amounts to images and their expression is clearly not justifiable (but this is another debate which centers on the status of private languages). Naturally, again, we can go on for quite a spell backwards into the conceptual underpinnings of our conceptual history. I choose to end here, for all this amounts to typical digression that can trap anyone.

So, perhaps more succinctly, I should say: I aim to understand what assertions mean, and the approach given above, which is tethered to the popular definition of knowledge, is my effort to understand. Whether it is wholly unfruitful, I believe is a matter of preference, and I should not ever demand that others engage it. Assertions amount to pictures whose brush strokes come from the bristles of justification and whose directions analogous to the lines of right thinking, conspicuous or obscure. I perceive never obstruction of sense, but only the fog of language, should such a fog compel me to unmanageable thought: I shall aim ever to understand what I mean before I say it, only so when I venture to craft from the world rather than create into the world.

And I end with the basis for my albeit archaic way of thinking:

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions; and to this end I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred, anger, envy, ambition, pity, and the other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes, by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in viewing them aright, as in knowing such things as flatter the senses.

Political Treatise, Baruch Spinoza

First Act

Primitive Man

(Points ostensibly to a mundane stone situated before him.) One!

Primitive Man

(Again.) One!

Primitive Man

(Again; followed by extended sigh.) One! …

Primitive Man

He begins to sulk and wail as if the act were a kind of superstitious ritual. He begins to dance, cajoled by the stone’s physical presence.

Primitive Man

One! One! One! One! …

Primitive Man

He stands dejected and immoral by his unsuccessful attempts. Rain shall not fall this season.

Our Primitive Man undertook a rain dance, say, so as to fruitfully introduce a new term into his language. His attempt, as given our scene, was a failure. But as he begins to stomp away from his alter, fire, what have you, he murmurs to himself as he paces. “One… One… One…”; he is “counting” his feet, as is clear, but he continuously, consistently fails (as he did before; he might now say: the set of his walking consisted in) — though the point here is that he is not celebrating in this act. It is a mere transition to another game. (Imagine, if you can, pacing as a game we play. And why is it not? Indeed, what makes this behavior not counting? — Do not say: “Well, obviously!” That is to say, I have generated a question, and if understood by any intellect, an answer must be given (we seek to, or rather are compelled to (theorem: psychologically), extend our epistemic rights.)

Second Act

Musical Man

Dun. Dun. Dun. Dun. Dun.

Musical Man

(Notice of a rhythm to his counting.)

Theory on correspondence theory of truth:

Music as a Representation of the World.

Consider the score a picture of reality in the “literal,” physical sense; music as a description of the empirical world, — now the mathematical world. Do not consider

Music as a Creation of the World.

We imagine music as a complexity, but is it, like with mathematics, necessarily not about the world? Would we say that music is an application of mathematics? Perhaps even founded on mathematics?

Devil’s enquiry: “The world created by a musical piece. What sense of world do we use here? Must it map to our understanding of world in the physical sense, world in the mathematical sense? Can we make sense of the question? Can we make sense of the use in ordinary language? (Will we resort to a psycho-causal theory to explain this phenomenon in ordinary language? Thus!: the sense of the question is best understood under the frame of the physical. But is the musical world created an approximation to our empirical world, or is it the Unto Itself, like how we view the world of the physical (the Natural world) or the mathematical (the world of Necessity)?

Third Act

(Rain fails — the man enjoys the Real-ality: observation of real numbers through a waterfall. Quickly: might one continue to bellow out: “One!”?)

Fourth Act

We are those caught in the rain,
Unable to embrace its insanity,
For our lack of language:
Language as a Necessity
To the Possibility of Sensation;
Of Seers See No Truth