§38
In 'On Denoting' Russell argued that demonstratives are the only singular terms http://revueltaredaccion.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/russell_on_denoting.pdf
Wittgenstein thinks this is odd ("...strange to say, the word 'this' has been called the real name; so that anything else we call a name was one only in an inexact, approximate sense."). I assume it sounds odd to most people and not just to Wittgenstein.
It is more than odd - it is completely incorrect. As Wittgenstein pointed out earlier (§9) 'there' and 'this' are used quite differently to number words and the 'names' of things ('block', 'slab'). 'This' is used in ostensively defining other words (like 'slab' perhaps). You might point to something and say 'this is called a slab' or you might point at someone and say 'she is called Emma'. The use of a name is explained by the use of a demonstrative expression - but we don't explain 'that' and 'this' in that way.
Wittgenstein says in §38 that philosophical problems occur when language goes on holiday. Presumably what Wittgenstein has in mind here - in this paragraph - is that philosophical problems about denoting terms occur when we forget about how they are used ordinarily, in practice, and we start to theorise about denoting terms, as Russell did.
I'm trying to understand how Wittgenstein's observations here matter for Russell's views... Can't Russell accept that proper and common names are used differently from demonstratives?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it counts much against Russell's view that he says 'this' is a name, when in ordinary language it is not, and that he says 'Walter Scott' is not a name, when in ordinary language it is. I think Russell could've expressed his view without using this confusing terminology. He could've said that names don't refer the way we think they do - they refer by standing in for descriptions. And that while we thought names referred to their objects directly, in fact the only words which do this are 'this' and 'that'.
I think Wittgenstein's discussion of the connection between a name and its object has implications for this but I'm finding it hard to draw them out.
Well - I think that Wittgenstein's considerations from earlier that count against referentialism and in favour of looking at how words are used counts against the idea that words work in a way that is hidden from us. I think that if we follow his suggestion from §15 ("...to say to ourselves: naming something is rather like attaching a name tag to a thing") that we would find that proper names do not function like definite descriptions.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting, though, that Wittgenstein does seem to think that proper names have a meaning and some people have attributed a 'cluster concept' theory of names. - I remember that from a class a long time ago from a discussion of the name 'Moses'.
One of Wittgenstein's points that I didn't mention above is that they are used to address people - but we don't address anything as 'this'. Another of Wittgenstein's points is that there is a great variety of words we are happy to categorise as names ordinarily. - Perhaps one point we could draw from this is that a referentialist theory doesn't really recognise the variety - the categorial differences between names. Russell could accept that proper names are used differently from demonstratives - but he wouldn't recognise the implications of this unless he made the connection between use and meaning.