Folder 11 part 3 Philosophical Terminology as Deliberately Ambiguous
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PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY AS DELIBERATELY AMBIGUOUS
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PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY AS DELIBERATELY AMBIGUOUS
Hermann Weyl observed that the first step in explaining
relativity theory must always consist in
shattering the dogmatic belief in the temporal terms, past,
present and future. You cannot apply mathematics as long as
words still becloud reality.
In this connection, Weyl quoted Andreas Speiser:
By its geometric and later by its purely symbolic construction,
mathematics shook off the fetters of language, and one who knows
the onornous work put into this process and its ever recurrent
surprising successes cannot help feeling that mathematics today
is more efficient in its sphere of the intellectual world, than
the modern languages in their deplorable state or even music are
on their respective fronts.
On still another page, Weyl tells us that
The mathematical game is played in silence, without words, like
a game of chess. Only the rules have to be explained and communicated
in words, and of course any arguing about the possibilities of the
game, for instance about its consistency, goes on in the medium of
words and appeals to evidence.
Any respectable word is so ambiguous that in various areas of
rc24.4
human knowledge 14.9.1.4cAmay in fact be described as beclouding reality
and as fettering our thought. But we should notice that the authors
just quoted are stating their apposite case in words, nor could they
do otherwise, while they themselves acknowledge this. Still, not
enough attention is being payed to the precise reason why even meta-
mÜtuieniatics resorts to words. All this we somehow take for granted.
It is all very well to point to exasperating ambiguity, but the real
problem remains: how could we do without words? Moreover, how could
we do without their very ambiguity? How could we prevent their use
except by forcing people to shut their mouths? I mean that as our
knowledge progresses the need for imposing new meanings upon terms
already in use is imperative. And I insist that this is in practice
acknowledged even by those who make the most irate attacks upon the
slipperiness of human speech as distinguished from the symbols and
symbolic constructs of logistics, mathematics and mathematical physics.
Let us take as an example the polyvalent Greek word hylé and its
Latin equivalent materia. Lexicons will list several meanings somewhat
in the following order: (a) forest, woodland; forest-trees; (b) wood
cut down; timber, lumber; (c) the stuff of which a thing is made,
material; generally, materials, Finally these words were extended
tc mean 'that of which' anything is composed, even though this might
be as various as the vapour of a cloud, the sides of a triangle, or
v'.
the terms of a syllogism, We know ylé, in Aristotle receives a new
imposition found nowhere else. But the point is that in this
instance too it.remains related to those more familiar meanings, even
as that which it is supposed to signify depends on knowledge of what
the word had already been used to signify.
In other words, a term (and this word term is itself a case in
point) may have some original meaning which it is well to know if
its later impositions are to be understood, that is, whenever the
term is applied to things which cannot be known nor, therefore,
named without reference to something earlier and more known to us.
For, if words are first signs of what we have in mind regarding
certain things, so that they refer to these things only through the
medium of the mind's conception of them, then, the way in which words
signify will not depend immediately oh the way in which the things
that they stand for are in themselves, but on the way they become
known to us and are present in the mind. And hence it is that we
can name a thing only as we know it, and that in naming things we
. /
follow the progress of knowledge. It is only natural that we should
transfer names of things more known to things less known, where our
knowledge itself proceeds from the more known to the less known with
dependence upon the former. Thus the word distance has been transferred
from things that are apart locally, to distance in time, distance
between simple and complex systems, between ideas, and philosophies.
Notice now that I am not speaking of original meanings of words
in the sense of etymology, although the true meaning of a term in this
narrower sense may sometimes be of use. Even erroneous etymology can
on occasion make do, provided the word is first applied to something
that can be readily and immediately identified, that is, if first
intended to convey something we know well. I` mean 'that etymology
may be one thing, and meaning still another. The former aims to tell
us where the word was taken from for the sake of signification;
whereas the meaning of the word concerns that upon which it is imposed
for the purpose of signifying. Thus the term manifest (whether it be
taken as a verb, an adjective, or a noun) comes from a Latin compound,
inanu(s) and fendere, which meant 'to seize by the hand;' hence 'palpable.'
Fur manifestus was a thief caught in the act. ' To manifest' became
'to make plain,' 'to wake to appear distinctly,' 'to put beyond question
or doubt,' etc. The adjective came to mean 'evident to the senses,'
especially to sight; 'apparent,' 'distinctly perceived;' hence 'obvious
to the understanding,' 'evident to the mind;' 'not obscure or hidden,'
1
Plainly this same word still retains many meanings. Knowledge of the
1. Another example would be 'verifiable in experience.' The first term
in this expression is already analogous, f mead nT t1~}}~~çç ggf1
verifying a name, another in verifying a sy tott; Uri ncTatïbfi, afe
another again in verifying a proposition or conclusion. 'Experience'
is not less ambiguous, having a distinct meaning in different sciences,
and even in different parts of a single science. 'Sense experience' is
itself an ambiguous expression, and so is the sole word 'sense.'
etymology is not indispensible, but reference to something in the order
of sensation is a requisite. tiat I do want to point out at this
juncture is that these several meanings are interrelated as primary and
secondary, and thgt the term is thus analogical.
Before going into this question of inter-relationship, I must point
out that in the case of words signifying things first known to sense,
s ?.such as noise, smell, sweet, pain, smooth, in$1, feel, move,, ?that
which they mean? and ?that from which their signification was drawn?
are one and the same. Whatever their philological origin, they are
not named from other things; and when they are it is purely incidental
to what we now intend. This is not the case of words such as bluefish,
If, aware that the name is taken from blue plus fish we insisted that
all blue fish ought to be bluefish, and all bluefish, blue, we would
in this event be confusing etymology and meaning, namely that whence
with that which the word signifies. A4,(13A°9
You can see how anyone who follows Aristotle on the various ?intentions of names? (Metaphysics V) must agree with logical positivists and analytical philosophers who insist that if a term is to have meaning it must refer to something that in one way or another can be verified in sense experience. Notice the qualification, which somfe,1would not accept (though implicity they do so in their own writings), namely, tin one way or another.? Take for instance the terms light and sight. These were originally imposed to mean that which allows our eyes to see, such as sun-or candlelight; and eyesight, Then, according to common usage the term sight extends to all knowledge obtained through the other senses. Thus we say, as St.Augustine pointed out, "See how it tastes, how it smells, how warm it is." Thus it is with the name light, which was extended to mean that which makes manifest according to knowledge of 'any kind. And so we say things like: 'Let us look at this problem in the light of new evidence,' or 'If you view this question in the light of the new calculus,' etc. The analogous term, then, though one as a name, has many distinct meanings as the result of new impositions. Now these are not haphazard. If they were, our term would be simply ambiguous, like 'dog', which may mean the animal, or the constellation. Take that analogous term sight. It means one thing in 'to see the equilateral chalk triangle ion the blackboard,' another in 'to see what the term equilateral triangle means.' As to us, the former is the first meaning. This is what seeing • .a-. means per prius,r The other is not so well known. Still, it refers to a sight that is in a sense more so than that which I share with my cat. The new meaning comes second in our knowing, but what it now refers to, namely this new kind of knowing, is, absolutely speaking, prior to what is conveyed by the previous meaning. One would rather lose eyesight than mind. Such terms, then, are ambiguous, but they are not so by mere chance: they are intended as ambiguous --a consilio. The conceptions they refer to are as many as whatever they were made to represent, but they are related in such a way that the one is not named without dependence on • the other. 'The light of calculus' cannot be grasped without reference to the light we need to see with our eyes.l There is no escaping this demand of the logical positivists. (It is interesting that they should be called 'logical,' for Metaphysics V is about the intentions of names, which in fact are works of reason. I definitely side with them in this particular regard, rather than with the Thomists of our day, whose 1. To the person blind from birth, some reference to sense would still be requisite. conception of analogy, one that began with Cajetan, would rule out once and for all the very possibility of metaphysics—as Kant so convincingly made plain in the Prolegomena.). The distinction between a given term as analogous or as metaphorical "r,is not always unmistakable. Light, for instance, in 'the light of calculus,' can be-an analogous term, but can also be taken as a metaphor. It is a case of metaphor when not extended and given further meaning to express a new knowledge acquired at the term of some dilscourse or other. The metaphor is based upon a likeness first grasped' by the one who expresses it in the mode of apparent identity. But the analogical term has at least two, inter-related, meanings with dependence of the one upon the other. Many of the so-called technical terms of philosophy look forbidding (if not pedantic) because they are borrowed from another language, like
the word 'philosophy' itself. And they appear all the more remote because they are usually taken according to later, more abstract impositions which had become theirs in that language. Such is the case with the words 'syllogism' and 'abstraction,' for example. Even in Latin, the adverb syllogistice (used by Cicero), as well as the low Latin noun syllogismus, refer immediately to an extended meaning of the Greek syllogismos and this is the imposition which Aristotle uses in logic. The word derives from an (with, together). and logismos (counting, calculation, ana also reason). So, in Latin, French, and English dictionaries, the very firstimear ng of 'syllogism' is 'a term of logic,' and reference is made to Aristotle. `Actually, the word was once used by the man in the street who knew nothing about its extended meaning, even though he put two things together and concluded to a third. Yet the passage from the meaning of the word in common use to its extended ,eaning can be followed as easily as the transition from 'light,' as in 'sunlight,' to 'enlighten' in 'enlighten me on:this subject of geometry.' Both in French and in English, the disparaging remark 'Wthat does reasoning have to do with syllogisms?! may well draw applause from the gallery. Such resentment is only natural when the borrowed term is used outright to signify something that, without reference to something more known or more knowable to us, can be understood only with difficulty, or not at all. Such a ,eference must be provided either by an earlier imposition, or by an etymology that helps to grasp a previous meaning. Failing this verification, such so-called technical terms take on an air of fraudulence which calls for exposure so long as one is presumed to know just what they mean—which appears to be the case of metaphysics in our time. The same holds for the word 'abstraction.' Both in French and in English it now means, first and immediately, something far removed from what is more known to us: viz., 'a certain operation of the mind,' or 'the status of something related to thought as distinguished from mere sensation.' The original Latin (just like the Greek aphairesis) conveyed 'the act of drawing or separating from,' a meaning very near to the etymology: ab, abs (from) and trahere (to draw, pull, take away). The sculptor, hewing away stone from stone, performs an abstraction in that primitive sense of the word. (This meaning was retained in the English adjective 'abstract,' but is now archaic.) Present-day discussions on the nature of abstraction show how bewildering are the consequences of using words intended to mean, from the first, something which can be properly known only by dependence upon something of which we are more immediately aware and /which the same word had already been imposed. The need to lead extended meanings back to those that can be verified of things more known and unquestioned would not arise if, with Descartes, we could assume that what is most knowable in itself can be equated with what is most knowable to us.— which is indeed the case in mathematics. To him, the words 'God' and 'soul' meant something first and most clearly known to us by intuition. He believed that he was using the word 'soul' according to the sense in which Aristotle uses the word psychè (originally 'breath of life') in Book III of De Anima, We do not mean that Descartes had nothing in mind when he used this word, but only that he nowhere provided a means of verification. Nor would he need to do so if we enjoyed the kind of intuitions with which he credits us. (Note that we are not speaking of propositions, but simply of the meaning of the words.) Actually, many later impositions of words depend either upon a comparison between something already known and named, and something we come to know, with dependence on the former, through some discourse o1-other. By forming an analogical term we express such a process which in every instance will somehow fall back 1 upon sense experience. For we'can name things only as we come to know them. Hence the very words we use to signify things that we can never know except by some comparison or reasoning process could not obtain such a particular meaning without these. Any statement containing, 1. Although geometrical points, lines and surfaces may be named after the crude objects of sensation (a respect in which such terms are analogical), nonetheless, so long as they are taken within the order of mathematical abstraction they have a single meaning. I mean that a straight line is just as much a line as a. cur yed one; and 'point' refers to what the very different one(— o r-dimensional points have in common. This utterly univocal character of all mathematical names is proper to this science. On the other hand, if, as Hermann Weyl said, it is irrelevant for the mathematician what circles are, there will be no need for words that he distinguished from symbols.
- or instance, the word 'soul,' taken in a sense far removed from sense
experience, yet with the assumption that this could, or should be its first imposition — like that of words for things immediately known, such as hot, white, breath-- is going to be like any other enunciation made in terms not entirely understood by its author. The neglect of meanings relating to experience opens the way to a philosophical jargon that all can repeat but no one understands. lt has been observed that the original meanings of words have to do with things of rudimentary sense experience and practical life. For instance, the Greek for 'soul'(psyché, whence our psyche, psychic, psychology, psychiatry, etc.) first meant the breath of life; while the Latin anima was used for air, a current of air, a. breeze; and we saw. that the adjective 'manifest' meant seized by the hand. For this reason, many believe that to recognize the simplest words of common speech (although the whole of Aristotle's vocabulary, however awesome it may have come to look in modern languages, was derived from them) as relevant to philosophy, is to condemn the latter and abandon it to anthropomorphism. This is a denial of the progress of know a ge from more to es lcriownf;x Rather than surrender to words in common use, some suggest that the philosopher should create his own vocabulary, out of nothing, so to speak, and employ only 'technical' terms divorced from usual meanings; much as the mathematical physicist, who must have recourse to symbols from the very start. If this assimilation were correct, it would imply that philosophy is a body of knowledge unrelated to what is actually more known to us; that it is based, perhaps, on some intuitions that are the privilege of a few, the only ones to have the right of calling themselves philosophers; or that the science is based on intuitions proper to some particular school. In effect, the reason why one does not understand the technical terms would be the lack of the proper intuitions. This position, which is rather widely received, implies that progress from the more commonly known to the less known, as well as the new impositions of words that attend it, cannot be achieved. Thus a word whose more original meaning referred to something practical, like 'manifest' means to seize with the hand could never be used to signify, in a proper sense, anything but that; or even 'symbol,' which meant the sign of a contract or convention, such as a wedding-ring, could not be reasonably extended to mean the sign of a collection that cannot be named. So that once a word has been used to refer to something in the order of sensation or in that of action or of making, it should never be employed to mean anything else in any. proper sense. If such were the case, we admit that philosophy could not name anything. And the reason would be that there would be nothing known to require a name. Philosophical terminology, much like that of common speech, is ambiguous, ite deliberately so. Although confusion may at times be in fact the result (one that the sophist will chose to exploit), it is meant to reveal order by expressing progress in knowledge from the more to the less known, inasmuch as the latter is dependent on the former. It might prove interesting to show that every philosopher, no matter what his dissension — even he who denies all philosophy, while he covets the title and in a sense deserves it-- does in fact use analogical terms. Nor could he have anything to say without these except perhaps in dubious metaphors However, this verification lies beyond our present scope.
Can it be that he who maintains4all~words should be univocal and, when applied to something else, no morb than metaphors, thereby confines himself to a logistic or mathematics whose symbols and rules could never be discussed except in words condemned as hopelessly confusing? Progress in any field outside of these techniques would in fact reduce to mere succession, like touching one thing and then another, or hearing and then seeing it, seeing a tree and then seeing a horse. I believe,all the same, that my speechless cat can do better. Charles De Koninck Laval University