Pirking i materien.

Blogger har akkurat slukt et lengre innlegg jeg har jobbet med en stund. Det som følger er et forsøk på hastig å rekonstruere hovedtankene.

I et innlegg på Salongen leverer Georg Kjøll et forsvar for språkfilosofien. Filosofens oppgave er å "pirke borti implisitte antakelser bak, og nyanser i, ting vi sier og gjør," og stille kritiske spørsmål til vitenskapens teoretiske forsøk på å forklare hva menneskespråket er. Kjøll gjør en god jobb med å demonstrere filosofiske vanskeligheter med en rekke teorier og folkelige intuisjoner om hva språklig mening er:

1. Teorien om at ord er navn, og at meningen med ordene er de tingene ordene navngir. (Hva med ord som ikke navngir konkrete ting, men abstrakte størrelser som for eksempel "mening"?) 2. Tanken om at ords betydning er gitt ved definisjoner. (De "aller fleste definisjoner vi gir som ordforklaringer enten er for vage eller for spesifikke til at de kan være ordenes faktiske innhold.") 3. Troen på at ords mening er fast og endelig. ("Mange ord kan gi uttrykk for mange ulike meninger, og ofte vil disse meningene variere fra person til person, og over tid." Hvis ordene hadde en endelig betydning, hvordan kan slike variasjoner forklares?) 4. Tanken om at det finnes et en-til-en-forhold mellom ord og mening. (Hvis ordene sto i et uløselig forhold til de meningene de uttrykker, skulle unnskyldninger som "det var ikke det jeg mente" i prinsipp være umulige.)

Men hva er egentlig mening? Alle normale mennesker lærer etterhvert å bruke språket på fornuftig vis -- vi snakker forståelig med hverandre, vi gjør oss forstått og forstår andre -- men hvordan får vi det egentlig til? Et ord som "god" for eksempel betyr vidt forskjellige ting avhengig av om vi tenker på en god kniv, om en god person eller en god historie. Betydningen varierer også med hva slags egenskap ved tingen eller personen vi snakker om. Setningen "Per er god" har ulik betydning i en sammenheng hvor vi snakker om Pers ferdigheter som skiløper, i en sammenheng hvor vi snakker om hans musikalske evner og i en sammenheng hvor vi snakker om hans store nestekjærlighet. "Hvordan kan det ha seg at vi som oftest skjønner meningen i dette ordet, når det kan variere så voldsomt i bruk, og betegne så mange ulike egenskaper," spør Kjøll, og går ganske langt i retning av å fremstille dette som et mysterium.

Kjøll hevder at "måten vi snakker om mening som noe uproblematisk i det daglige, er med på å maskere hvilket enormt mysterium menneskets evne til å lære seg å uttrykke og forstå språk egentlig er," men jeg vil snarere mene at Kjøll er med på å fabrikere dette mysteriet.

Mening er det som gjør at ord og setninger kan brukes til å snakke om i ting i verden. Ords mening er en helt sentral forutsetning for at språk skal kunne fungere, og at ord kan brukes til å oppnå forståelse.

Selvsagt må ordene være meningsfulle for at vi skal kunne si noe fornuftig med dem. Men å hevde at ords mening er en forutsetning for at språk kan fungere, antyder at ordene må ha en mening før de kan anvendes på forståelig vis. Men dette er å snu tingene på hodet. Ess kan være både det høyeste og det laveste kortet i kortspill. Da kan det ikke være spillkortenes valør som avgjør hvordan vi kan bruke dem, men -- omvendt -- måten vi bruker dem på, hvilke regler vi følger, hvilket spill vi spiller, som bestemmer kortenes valør. Slik er språk også. Språk er ikke et system av (meningsfulle) tegn. Language is something we do, for å sitere Lars Hertzberg. Språket er vevd inn i våre liv. Det er ved å bli en del av våre praksiser at ord og uttrykk får sin betydning. Ords betydning er ikke en forutsetning for at språket kan fungere. Et fungerende språk er en forutsetning for at ord og setninger kan bety noe som helst. "I en stor klasse tilfeller -- men ikke i alle tilfeller," skriver Wittgenstein, "kan man forklare anvendelsen av ordet "betydning" slik: Et ords betydning er dets anvendelse i språket." (Filosofiske undersøkelser §43) At vi oftest forstår hva som menes med utsagnet "Per er god", skyldes ikke at vi tilfeldigvis gjetter hvilken betydning av "god" man tenker på, men at vi som oftest kjenner sammenhengen der utsagnet brukes. Når det er fotballferdigheter vi diskuterer, er det ikke uklart om ordet "god" brukes som i "Maradona er god" eller som i "Mors fløtepudding er god". Innenfor slike konkrete språkspill har ord en nokså klar betydning. Utenfor enhver kontekst -- hvis du finner en papirlapp med teksten på gaten, for eksempel -- betyr ikke "Per er god" noe som helst.

Videre skriver Kjøll:

Ikke bare er språklig mening en vag ting, det er også umulig å ta og peke på mening, eller identifisere det fysisk på noen spesiell måte. Vi vet ikke hvordan ords mening kan identifiseres i hjernen, og selv om vi visste det, er det fortsatt en lang vei å gå herfra til å forstå hva det er som gjør at mening skapes og på bakgrunn av hva det oppstår.

Men mening er ikke en objektiv egenskap ved ord, setninger og uttrykk på denne måten. Hvis en tanke betyr noe, så betyr den noe for noen. Hva jeg mener med utsagnet "Per er god" ligger ikke gjemt inne i hjernen min. Tanker må alltid tolkes. Det er derfor Wittgenstein skriver: "Om Gud hadde sett inn i vår sjel, ville han ikke der ha kunnet se hvem vi snakket om." (FU s. 247) Hvis jeg tenker på et tre og forestiller meg et grantre og Gud ser dette som et juletre i plast, hvem har rett? Hva slags tre jeg mener viser seg gjennom min atferd; gjennom hva jeg sier og gjør. Det er her, ikke i selve ordene eller i hjernen min, men i min bruk av ordene at deres mening ligger. Følgelig vil ingen MR-skanning bringe oss det minste nærmere en forståelse i spørsmål om mening.

Så lenge det finnes teorier, avslutter Kjøll, "vil det finnes behov for filosofer som kan pirke i materien, stille de vanskelige spørsmålene og se de store linjene i studiet av språk." QED

Listen up!

I love audiobooks. They keep me going when I am out running or walking, and, because I don't like to read while lying down, I listen to them in bed at night before falling to sleep. In the last few days, however, I have been walking around with earplugs all the time. I am listening to the correspondence between J. M. Coetzee and Paul Auster. In 2008 Coetzee suggested that the two of them begin exchanging letters on a regular basis. Here and Now is the result of that proposal. Over three years their letters touched on almost every subject, from friendship to sports, from food to death, philosophy to poetry, from film festivals to family life, travels, memory, the meaning of names, and the financial crisis. Though some comments on political and economic matters are less than profound, the book has the feel of a casual table conversation between two intellectuals. What keeps me listening, though, is not the brilliance of the minds -- "though that feature is generously on offer as well," to quote one reviewer -- "but the warmth, unpretentiousness, and honesty that emerges from these pages". Such qualities may be of interest primarily to fans. It is always nice to discover your favourite author to be a likeable person too. If you have no relationship to either of the writers, I am not sure this publication is meant for you.

What a great idea, I thought, upon discovering the audiobook edition, and learning that the letters would be read by the authors themselves. What better way to deliver personal reflections than in your own voice! And I am happy to report that the qualities of their thinking are reflected in the tone of their voices too.

Narrow escapes.

The other day I overheard a couple of tourists talking about how they had been only inches from death on a field trip earlier that day. I do not know what had happened. Nothing very serious, judging by the light hearted tone of their conversation. But if things had been just a little different, if they hadn't turned around exactly when they did or whatever, then, I imagine, they would hardly have been talking so merrily about the incident, perhaps not talking at all.

When someone trips and falls close to a cliff, he may, as he picks himself up, look over the edge and into the abyss with relief. Had he lost his footing only a step or two later, he would have plummeted to the very bottom of the gorge. Later, when relating the incident, he will no doubt describe how he was close to dying up there.

This figure of speech is commonplace. However, I am wondering about what may or may not be an underlying picture here. Saying that he was inches away from dying, makes it sound as if death were present but that he somehow managed to escape it. That is what he means too, in some sense, but consider this: As he approached the edge, was he also walking closer to his death?

I once startled my wife (only slightly, she knows me too well) with a remark along that line of thought. Everyday, on my way from work, I had to cross some busy streets; seconds later the traffic would thunder by. Coming home one day, I told my wife how I had been only seconds away from being run over. It was a joke of course. Nothing had happened, not even almost -- yet, if I had in fact run across that street the way I did those few seconds later, then I would hardly have been alive to tell her about it....

Goldielocks Universe.

Before the Big Bang no-one would have guessed that life would ever evolve. For life to evolve innumerable things had to turn out exactly as they did. According to science, the tiniest alteration of just one of many crucial parameters, and life as we know it would never have existed. Some calculations indicate that the force of gravity must be accurate to one part in 10⁴⁰ in order for this to happen. "It's as if there are a large number of dials that have to be tuned to within extremely narrow limits for life to be possible in our universe. It is extremely unlikely that this should happen by chance," according to Alvin Plantinga, "but much more likely that this should happen if there is such a person as God."

This is sometimes known as the design explanation for the fine-tuned universe. A life supporting universe is intrinsically unlikely, or so it is argued. But if there is an intelligent Creator, then that would explain everything. Random chance would only raise the question as to why this universe could be so "lucky" as to have precise conditions that support life (at least here and for the time being). But if everything were designed according to some intelligent plan, then this mind boggling precision would be exactly what to expect.

A rival explanation is the Multiverse-hypothesis, according to which there is a whole bunch of universes -- not just galaxies within our own universe, but complete universes. Given a string of universes, one would expect the various combinations of parameters for basic physical factors to show up in endless combinations. That one combination is suitable for life should not surprise anyone."If there is a large stock of clothing, you're not surprised to find a suit that fits," in the words of Martin Rees. "If there are many universes, each governed by a differing set of numbers, there will be one where there is a particular set of numbers suitable to life. We are in that one."

Replies Plantinga:

Well, of course our universe would have to be fine-tuned, given that we live in it. But how does that so much as begin to explain why it is that [our universe] is fine-tuned? One can't explain this by pointing out that we are indeed here—anymore than I can "explain" the fact that God decided to create me (instead of passing me over in favor of someone else) by pointing out that if God had not thus decided, I wouldn't be here to raise that question. It still seems striking that these constants should have just the values they do have; it is still monumentally improbable, given chance, that they should have just those values; and it is still much less improbable that they should have those values, if there is a God who wanted a life-friendly universe.

There are difficulties here. Whether or not this God-hypothesis is more probable than other explanations depends, as John Perry argued in a teaser for a recent Philosophy Talk, on what is required for the existence of such a God. "Wouldn’t that in turn require the existence of a Creator-friendly universe, or proto-universe, with parameters set to allow for the development of such a powerful and wonderful Being, capable of setting the parameters for our universe?" A clever question, no doubt; but I am sure Plantinga would have an answer ready and argue that intelligent design nevertheless is the more plausible hypothesis. I am not writing this to take sides. In fact, I am not sure what the discussion is all about. Arguing over which explanation (for why the universe is suitable for life) is more probable, looks like an argument where language has gone on holiday. Probability is something we normally talk about within the universe -- when unlikely things happen, we ask for explanations -- but here the question is how probable the universe itself is? How unlikely is a life-supporting universe? And how unlikely is that to develop by sheer coincidence? Unlikely, compared to what?

I am not sure I see why there is something here to explain either. Consider the following quote from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything:

To be here now, alive in the twenty-first century and smart enough to know it, you also had to be the beneficiary of an extraordinary string of biological good fortune. Survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business [...] Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favoured evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely -- make that miraculously -- fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.

Of this, I am tempted to say, if things had gone differently, I simply wouldn't have been here to raise the question at all. I fully agree that that doesn't explain anything, but I do not share Plantinga's (and other's) need for an explanation. Reading Bryson's tale fills me with amazement too, momentarily at least. Of all the things that could have gone wrong, none did! It is incredible that I got here at all, yet here I am! But there seems to be a certain (mischievous?) picture here -- of a tiny charge of genetic material that has made it safely through 3.8 billion years of continuous narrow escapes in order to make me. This looks like quite an accomplishment. When a package reaches its final destination unscathed, despite having faced earthquakes, avalanches, blizzards, mine-fields and so on, then that might make us look for an explanation. Calling it chance will hardly satisfy our need. (That's because chance isn't really an explanation at all, but rather something we appeal to when there are none.) Intelligent design (or Providence or Destiny) might look like much better options.

However, I cannot settle with this picture, mainly, I guess, because I cannot see any sense in saying that if things had been a little different and my parents hadn't met, then I would have been a package forever lost in the mail, as it were. One can say (and some do), how amazing it is that my mother, of all the men in the world, happened to meet my father. What were the chances!? But to me this sounds confused. It does make some sense to praise yourself lucky that your parents met and fell in love. But the sense is not that it would have been very unfortunate if they hadn't met, because then you would never have been born. One cannot say, bad luck for all those whose parents never meet.(Though that seems to be exactly what Plantinga is saying, when claiming that God, in creating me, somehow decided not to pass me over in favour of someone else.) When one say, how very lucky I am to be alive, this is normally a way of expressing one's gratitude, not a probabilistic judgement.

Your parents did meet, of course. Good for you, but is it more than that? Is it amazing? Today your father, of all the people in the world, sat next to this particular odd person on the bus. Why should the first be more in need of an explanation than the second? The first strikes you as wondrous because it was crucial for your existence. But if your father hadn't met your mother on that day, say, if he had gone to the movies instead of the beach, possibly to fall in love with someone else, and father, not you (you simply wouldn't exist) but someone else. Would that have been amazing too?

Bladet fra munnen.

Jeg har lite å meddele i dag, utover denne unnskyldningen for mitt lange fravær. Jeg har hatt mye å gjøre denne måneden, og så har begge ungene vært syke, og så har vi hatt overnattingsbesøk og i skrivende stund er jeg selv slått ut av influensa. Men nå er i det minste tausheten brutt. Jeg jobber med et par skikkelige innlegg, som forhåpentligvis vil bli ferdig i løpet av ikke så lang tid. Ellers kan jeg opplyse (den som ikke har fått det med seg) at Europa fra og med i går har forbudt all kosmtikk testet på dyr. I går kveld så jeg også en dokumentarfilm om mobbing som (sammen med febertoktene) holdt meg våken store deler av natten. Jeg kan ikke annet enn slutte meg til Birger Vestmos dom: Bully er filmen alle barn, foreldre og skoleansatte bør tvinges til å se.

La alegría ya viene.

The Chilean film NO is based on a true story. In 1988, Augusto Pinochet, was forced to ask the public whether his dictatorship should continue or not. The result, perhaps surprisingly, was not given.

René Saavedra, a young, media smart advertising man, is chosen to lead the NO campaign. At first he frustrates his colleagues by stubbornly attending more to the form and the aesthetics of the campaign than to its content. Soon, however, the ball begins to roll their way, and the rest (as they say) is history...

Even though the good guys win in the end, this film did not make me more in favour of allowing political commercials in Norway. I am not worried that colourful posters and catchy songs will become more important than political debates. (Debates isn't necessarily the best medium for politics anyway.) Treating political questions, democracy versus dictatorship, say, as a choice between different lifestyles -- "Where do you (wish to) belong, with the hip and fresh, or with the old and grey?" -- just seems like a disrespectful approach to politics. At worst it is a way of avoiding political discussions entirely.

This is not intended as a critique of the film, though. NO is undoubtedly a nice film, with an interesting story told in a compelling way. It gives good impression of just how tied up today's politics is with the media and the PR industries.The acting is good, and the colours, the clothes and the hairstyles are all spot on. The director even used a typical nineteen-eighties' camera in order to make the film look vintage. At times this made it hard to tell historical footage from the new and original. Some reviewers have found that annoying, but I did not. I enjoyed it.

"Polemic, or the art of throwing eggs..."

...men om man ikke vet hva man driver med, vil man kun søle til seg selv...

Da jeg hadde lest innledningen til Sten Anderssons bok om Wittgenstein, hadde jeg en rekke reservasjoner: "hvis det forsetter på denne måten," skrev jeg, "er jeg ikke sikker på om jeg kommer gjennom alle 760 sidene." Etter to tredjedeler legger jeg nå boken fra meg. Andersson erklærer seg allerede på de første sidene likegyldig til Wittgensteins tenkning: "Det är han själv som er interessant." Men etter boken å dømme er verken filosofi eller filosof mye verdt. Å bruke 700 sider på mannen fremstår som det rene sløseri. I dette intervjuet sammenligner biografen Andersson sin rolle med det uredde barnet som våger å si (det alle egentlig vet) at keiseren går uten klær. Det forteller mye om boken.

Martin Gustafsson anmeldte biografien for Svenska Dagbladet. Kritikken er drepende, men velfortjent. Gustafsson trekker frem en lang (men langt fra fullstendig) rekke faktafeil, misforståelser og selvmotsigelser. Egentlig kunne jeg ha lyst til å sitere hele anmldelsen, men skal nøye meg med noen utvalgte avsnitt:

[Anderssons] redogörelser för Wittgensteins filosofi, såväl den tidigare som den senare, blottlägger häpnadsväckande missförstånd för vilka studenter på en introduktionskurs utan vidare skulle kuggas. Men i stället för att inse hur bristfällig hans förståelse av Wittgensteins tänkande är, drar Andersson slutsatsen att där inte finns så särskilt mycket viktigt att förstå. Vilket i sin tur innebär att han drivs till de mest säregna förklaringar av centrala händelser i Wittgensteins liv.

Hur kom det sig till exempel att Bertrand Russell tog så starkt intryck av Wittgenstein en kort tid efter att den österrikiske 22-åringen anlänt till Cambridge, och snart börjar behandla honom mer som en jämbördig kollega än som en student, för att till slut ge upp sina pågående språk- och kunskapsfilosofiska undersökningar på grund av Wittgensteins kritik? Enligt Andersson beror det helt enkelt på att Wittgenstein med sin stil och bakgrund duperade den store engelske logikern: Russell låter Wittgenstein ”smula sönder tjugo års arbete genom att med en handpåläggning mumla några obegripliga formler likt en trollkarl. Russell känner smärtan och tror att den är berättigad. Det är en fullständigt sagolik historia”.

Sagolik var ordet. Är det inte mycket enklare och trovärdigare att åtminstone delvis förklara Wittgensteins påverkan på Russell med att han faktiskt var en osedvanligt intelligent och filosofiskt talangfull student som förmådde identifiera svaga punkter i Russells teori? Men den förklaringen har Andersson uteslutit a priori som naiv genikult, och han drivs därför till en rent reduktionistisk, förnumstigt sociologiserande och psykologiserande redogörelse, eftersom att han från början bestämt sig för att Wittgenstein inte kan ha haft något substantiellt att komma med.

Ironiskt nog leder Anderssons envisa åtskiljande av Wittgensteins intressanta person från hans relativt ointressanta filosofi till att inte heller personen framstår som särskilt intressant. Anderssons Wittgenstein är en arrogant, plågad, självupptagen, politiskt naiv, kärlekslös och socialt fullkomligt inkompetent rikemansson som av omgivningen upphöjts till geni, trots att han egentligen inte har särskilt mycket att bidra med inom filosofin.  

La meg avslutte slik Martin Gustafsson innleder: "Sten Andersson avfärdar Ludwig Wittgensteins filosofi som ointressant och tar i stället sikte på privatpersonen. Hans bok är dock så full av felaktigheter och missförstånd att den på inget plan kan mäta sig med eller ens komplettera tidigare biografier."