Lecture One, J.locke

8/13/2019 Lecture One, J.locke

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May 8, 2007

Between Saying and Doing:

Towards an Analytic PragmatismLecture One

Extending the Project of Analysis1

My aim in these lectures is to present a new way of thinking aout language, specifically

aout the relations etween meaning and use, or etween what is said and the acti!ity of saying

it" #o that end, $ will introduce a new metatheoretic conceptual apparatus, and de!elop it

through applications to a numer of sorts of locution that ha!e, properly, een the focus of

intense philosophical interest% logical and semantic !ocaulary, inde&ical !ocaulary, modal,

normati!e, and intentional !ocaularies" #he concerns that animate this enterprise arise from a

way of thinking aout the nature of the general pro'ect pursued y analytic philosophy o!er the

past century or so, and aout its epic confrontation with (ittgensteinean pragmatism" )ustifying

that rendering of the tradition would take me far afield, ut it will e well to egin with at least a

sketch of that moti!ating picture"

Section 1: The Classical Project of Analysis

$ think of analytic philosophy as ha!ing at its center a concern with semantic relations

etween what $ will call *!ocaularies+" $ts characteristic form of uestion is whether and in

what way one can make sense of the meanings e&pressed y onekind of locution in terms of the

meanings e&pressed y anotherkind of locution" -o, for instance, two early paradigmatic

1#he work reported here was conducted with the support of the ."(" Mellon /oundation, through their istinguished

.chie!ement in the umanities .ward, and the enter for .d!anced -tudy in the Beha!ioral -ciences at -tanford 3ni!ersity4where $ was also supported y the Mellon /oundation5"

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pro'ects were to show that e!erything e&pressile in the !ocaulary of numer


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demandingly, to oser!ational !ocaulary" #ypical target!ocaularies include o'ecti!e

!ocaulary formulating claims aout how things actually are 4as opposed to how they merely

appear5, primary


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#hat is, he takes it that the whole point of a theory of meaning is to e&plain, codify, or illuminate

features of the useof linguistic e&pressions" e, like ummett, endorses the analogy% meaningis

to useas theoryis to obseration" .nd he argues that postulating meanings associated with its

of !ocaulary yields a badtheory of discursi!e practice"

$f there were such things as meanings that determine how it would e correct to use our

e&pressions, then those meanings would at least ha!e to determine the inferential roles of those

e&pressions% what follows from applying them, what applying them rules out, what is good

e!idence for or against doing so" But what follows from what depends on what else is true>on

laws of nature and oscure contingent facts>that is, on what claims can ser!e as au&iliary

hypotheses or collateral premises in those inferences" $f we look at what practical ailities are

reuired to deploy !arious its of !ocaulary>at what one has to e ale to doin order to count

assayingsomething with them>we do not find any special set of these whose practical

significance can e understood aspragmaticallydistincti!e ofsemanticallynecessary or

sufficient conditions":

Cuine thought one could sa!e at least the naturalist program y retreating semantically to the le!el of

reference and truth


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usiness of stating facts, he goes on to deny, in effect, that such uses e!en form a pri!ileged

center, on the asis of which one can understand more peripheral ones" 4@Language,A he says,

@has no downtown"A5

$ take it that (ittgenstein also understands the home language


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disparate kinds of use>e!en with lieral use of logical elaoration of the meanings>ecomes

contentious and in need of 'ustification oth in general and in each particular case"

More specifically, (ittgenstein uses the image of @family resemlancesA to urge that the

kindsinto which linguistic practices and the !ocaularies caught up in them are functionally

sorted>what elong together in o&es laeled *game+, *name+, *assertion+, *oser!ation+ and so

on>do not typically admit of specification in terms of underlying principles specifiale in other

!ocaularies, whether y genus and differentia4e5 or any other kind of e&plicit rule or definition"

$t is easy to understand this line of thought as entailing a straightforward denial of the possiility

of semantic analysis in the classical sense"

$ think that one thought underlying these oser!ations aout the unsystematic,

unsur!eyale !ariety of kinds of uses of e&pressions and aout the uncodifiale character of

those kinds concerns the essentially dynamiccharacter of linguistic practice" $ think

(ittgenstein thinks that an asolutely fundamental discursi!e phenomenon is the way in which

the ailities reuired to deploy one !ocaulary can e practically e$tended, elaorated, or

de!eloped so as to constitute the aility to deploy some further !ocaulary, or to deploy the old

!ocaulary in uite different ways" Many of his thought


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name usage could e taken to ha!e had"7 $n the old practice it always made sense to ask for the

identity of the mother andfather of the named item in the new practice, that uestion is often

senseless" .gain, we are asked to imagine a community that talked aout ha!ing gold or sil!er

in one+s teeth, and e&tends that practice to talk aout ha!ing pain in one+s teeth" $f as a matter of

contingent fact the practitioners can learn to use the e&pression *in+ in the new way, uilding on

ut adapting the old, they will ha!e fundamentally changed the smeaningsof *in+" $n the old

practice it made sense to ask where the gold was beforeit was in one+s tooth in the new practice

asking where the pain was efore it was in the tooth can lead only to a distincti!ely

philosophical kind of pu==lement"

8

.t e!ery stage, what practical e&tensions of a gi!en practice are possile for the practitioners can turn on

features of their emodiment, li!es, en!ironment, and history that are contingent and wholly particular to them" .nd

which of those de!elopments actually took place, and in what order can turn on any oscure fact" #he reason

!ocaulary


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some aspects of the use of a !ocaulary that are not at allpracticallypri!ileged, and spawning

philosophical pu==lement aout the intelligiility of the rest"10 On this conception, the classical

pro'ect of analysis is a disease that rests on a fundamental, if perennial, misunderstanding>one

that can e remo!ed or ameliorated only y heeding the ad!ice to replace concern with meaning

y concern with use" #he recommended philosophical attitude to discursi!e practice is

accordingly descriptie particularism, theoretical (uietism, andsemantic pessimism"

Section 3: Extending the Project of Analysis: Pragmatically Mediated Semantic Relations

On this account (ittgenstein is putting in place a picture of discursi!e meaningfulness or

significance that is !ery different from that on which the classical pro'ect of analysis is

predicated" $n place ofsemantics, we are encouraged to dopragmatics>not in the sense of Haplan

and -talnaker, which is really the semantics of tokenut

*pragmatics+in the sense of the study of the useof e&pressions in !irtue of which they are

meaningful at all" #o the formal, mathematically inspired tradition of /rege, ?ussell, arnap,

and #arski, culminating in model


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$f we lea!e open the possiility that the use of some !ocaulary may e illuminated y

taking it to e&press some sort of meaning or content>that is, if we do not from the eginning

emrace theoretical semantic nihilism>then the most important positi!e pragmatist insight will

e one complementary to the methodological pragmatism $ ha!e already identified" #he thought

underlying the pragmatist line of thought is that what makes some it of !ocaulary mean what it

does is how it is used" (hat we could callsemanticpragmatism is the !iew that the only

e&planation there could e for how a gi!en meaninggets associated with a !ocaulary is to e

found in the useof that !ocaulary% the practices y which that meaning is conferred or the

ailities whose e&ercise constitutes deploying a !ocaulary with that meaning" #o roaden the

classical pro'ect of analysis in the light of the pragmatists+ insistence on the centrality of

pragmatics, we can focus on this fundamental relation etween use and meaning, etween

practices or practical ailities and !ocaularies" (e must look at what it is to use locutions as

e&pressing meanings>that is, at what one must doin order to count assayingwhat the

!ocaulary lets practitioners e&press" $ am going to call this kind of relation @practiceor usually, @EK


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@the capacity to refer to electrons y the word *electron+,A 4or, $ think, e!en intentionsso to refer5" .nd

that is to say that the interest of the EK


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! P

1 % E K < s u f f

2 % K E < s u f f

R e s 1 % K K < 1 , 2

M e a n i n g " # s e $ i a g r a m % 1 :P r a g m a t i c

M e t a & o c a ' ( l a r y

#he con!entions of this diagram are%

Kocaularies are shown as o!als, practices


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analysisso as to incor)orate as essential )ositi&e elements the insights that animate the

pragmatistcriti*(e of that )roject is that+ alongside the classical semantic relations 'et,een

&oca'(laries that )roject has traditionally a))ealed to+ ,e consider alsopragmatically

mediatedones-of ,hich the relation of 'eing a )ragmatic meta&oca'(lary is a )aradigm. $

will introduce an apparatus that recursi!ely generates an infinite set of such pragmatically mediated semantic

relations" $n fact $ will e!entually argue that unless we take steps along these lines, we cannot understand the

e&pressi!e roles played y some of the kinds of !ocaulary with which the analytic tradition has een most centrally

concerned% logical, modal, normatie, and intentional!ocaularies"

3nder what circumstances would this simplest pragmatically mediated semantic relation

e philosophically interesting, when considered in connection with the sorts of !ocaularies that

ha!e een of most interest to classical analysisN .t least one sort of result that could e of

considerale potential significance, $ think, is if it turned out that in some cases pragmatic

meta!ocaularies e&ist that differ significantly in their e&pressi!e power from the !ocaularies

for the deployment of which they specify sufficient practicesthough of course it is not e&pressed in terms of the

machinery $ ha!e een introducing>is uw Erice+s pragmatic normati!e naturalism"12 e

argues, in effect, that although normati!e !ocaulary is not reducibletonaturalistic !ocaulary,

it might still e possile tosayin wholly naturalistic !ocaulary what one must doin order to e

12 -ee his @aturalism without ?epresentationalismA in Mario de aro and a!id Macarthur 4eds"5+aturalism in

,uestion Far!ard 3ni!ersity Eress, 2006G, pp" 71


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usingnormati!e !ocaulary" $f such a claim aout the e&istence of an e&pressi!ely

ootstrapping naturalistic pragmatic meta!ocaulary for normati!e !ocaulary could e made

out, it would e!idently e an important chapter in the de!elopment of the naturalist core program

of the classical pro'ect of philosophical analysis" $t would e a paradigm of the sort of payoff we

could e&pect from e&tending that analytic pro'ect y including pragmatically mediated semantic

relations"

#he meaning


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for *is+


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i n f e r e n t i a l

P i n f e r e n t i a l

1 % E K < s u f f

P o ' s e r & a t i o n a l

7 % E K < s u f f

2 % E E < n e c

R e s 1 % K K 1 , 2 , 7

M e a n i n g " # s e $ i a g r a m % 3 :

P r a g m a t i c a l l y M e d i a t e d

S e m a n t i c P r e s ( ) ) o s i t i o n

o ' s e r & a t i o n a l

/or these cases, we can say something further aout the nature of the pragmatically mediated semantic relation that

is analy=ed as the resultant M3? in these diagrams" /or instead of 'umping directly to this KK resultant M3?, we

could ha!e put in the composition of the EE


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*!ocaulary+ takes a purelysyntacticsense" Of course, the cases we e!entually care aout >and

will e discussing in the remaining lectures>in!ol!e !ocaularies understood in a sense that

includes theirsemanticsignificance" But esides the ad!antages of clarity and simplicity, we

will find that some important lessons carry o!er from the syntactic to the semantic case"

#he restriction to !ocaularies understood in a spare syntactic sense leads to

correspondingly restricted notions of what it is to deploysuch a !ocaulary, and what it is to

specifypractices


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specified !ocaulary" .nd *writing+ it means practically eing ale toproduceall and only the

strings in the alphaetic uni!erse that do elong to the !ocaulary"

(e assume as primiti!e ailities the capacities to read and write, in this sense, the

alphaet from whose uni!erse the !ocaulary is drawn>that is, the capacity to respond

differentially to alphaetic tokens according to their type, and to produce tokens of antecedently

specified alphaetic types" #hen the ailities that are EK


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.s a readerof the laughing -anta !ocaulary, the task of this automaton is to process a

finite string, and determine whether or not it is a licit string of the !ocaulary" $t processes the

string one alphaetic character at a time, eginning in -tate 1" $t recogni=es the string if and only

if 4when and only when5 it arri!es at its final state, -tate 6" $f the first character of the string is

not an *h+, it remains stuck in -tate 1, and re'ects the string" $f the first character is an *h+, it

mo!es to -tate 2, and processes the ne&t character" $f that character is not an *a+ or an *o+, it

remains stuck in -tate 2, and re'ects the string" $f the character is an *a+ or an *o+, it mo!es to

-tate " $f the ne&t character is an e&clamation point, it mo!es to -tate 6, and recogni=es the

string *haT+ or *hoT+>the shortest ones in the laughing -anta !ocaulary" $f instead the ne&t

character is an *h+, it goes ack to -tate 2, and repeats itself in loops of *ha+s and *ho+s any

numer of times until an e&clamation point is finally reached, or it is fed a discordant character"

.s a writerof the laughing -anta !ocaulary, the task of the automaton is to produce

only licit strings of that !ocaulary, y a process that can produce any and all such strings" $t

egins in its initial state, -tate 1, and emits an *h+ 4its only a!ailale mo!e5, changing to -tate 2"

$n this state, it can produce either an *a+ or an *o+>it selects one at random18>and goes into

-tate " $n this state, it can either tack on an e&clamation point, and mo!e into its final state,

-tate 6, finishing the process, or emit another *h+ and return to -tate 2 to repeat the process" $n

any case, whene!er it reaches -tate 6 and halts, the string it has constructed will e a memer of

the laughing -anta !ocaulary"

18 .s a matter of fact, it can e shown that e!ery !ocaulary readale;writeale y a nonis also readale;writeale y a deterministic one" Fref"G

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$ hope this rief rehearsal makes it clear how the constellation of nodes and arrows that

makes up this directed graph represents the ailities to read and write 4recogni=e and produce

aritrary strings of5 the laughing -anta !ocaulary"1 (hat it represents is ailities that areP)*

sufficientto deploythat !ocaulary>that is, read and write it, in the attenuated sense appropriate

to this purely syntactic case" .nd the digraph representation is itself a ocabularythat is )P*

sufficienttospecifythose !ocaularynot nowsemantic, utsyntactic>relation etween !ocaularies"

$t may seem that $ am stretching things y calling the digraph form of representation a

*!ocaulary+" $t will e useful, as a way of introducing my final point in the !icinity, to consider

1 /or practice, or to test one+s grip on the digraph specification of /-.s, consider what !ocaulary o!er the same

alphaet that produces the laughing -anta is recogni=ed;produced y this automaton%

3

o

1

2

T h e 4 5 ! l l 6 a & e 7 h a t S h e ! s

6 a & i n g 4 A ( t o m a t o n

0

oh

h

a

a

o

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a different form of pragmatic meta!ocaulary for the laughing -anta !ocaulary" Besides the

digraph representation of a finite


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a ( g h i n gS a n t a

P a ( g h i n g S a n t aA ( t o m a t o n

1 % E K < s u f f

S A S t a t e "T a ' l e

2 % K E < s u f f

R e s 1 % K K 1 , 2

P S A S t a t e " T a ' l eA ( t o m a t o n

3 % E K < s u f f

M e a n i n g " # s e $ i a g r a m % 8 :S ) e c i f y i n g t h e A ( t o m a t o n

t h a t $ e ) l o y s t h e a ( g h i n gS a n t a o c a ' ( l a r y

Section : The Choms/y 6ierarchy and a Syntactic Exam)le of Pragmatic Ex)ressi&e

9ootstra))ing

?estricting oursel!es to a purely syntactic notion of a !ocaulary yields a clear sense of

*pragmatic meta!ocaulary+% oth the digraph and the state


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than another can nonetheless ser!e as an adeuatepragmaticmeta!ocaulary for that stronger

!ocaulary" #hat is, e!en though one cannotsayin the weaker !ocaulary e!erything that can e

saidin the stronger one, one can stillsayin the weaker one e!erything that one needs to e ale

to doin order to deploy the stronger one"

ere the rele!ant notion of the relati!e e&pressi!e power of !ocaularies is also a purely

syntactic one" .lready in the 190+s, homsky offered mathematical characteri=ations of the

different sets of strings of characters that could e generated y different classes of grammars

4that is, in my terms, characteri=ed y different kinds of syntactic meta!ocaularies5 and

computed y different kinds of automata" #he kinds of !ocaulary, grammar, and automata line

up with one another, and can e arranged in a strict e&pressi!e hierarchy% the homsky

hierarchy" $t is summari=ed in the following tale%

oca'(lary rammar A(tomaton

?egular .aB

.a

/inite -tate

.utomaton

onte&t


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strings of any aritrary numer of *a+s followed y the same numer of *+s" #he idea ehind the

proof is that in order to tell whether the right numer of *+s follow the *a+s 4when reading5 or to

produce the right numer of *+s 4when writing5, the automaton must somehow keep track of

how many *a+s ha!e een processed 4read or written5" #he only way an /-. can store

information is y eing in one state rather than another" -o, it could e in one state>or in one of

a class of states>if one *a+ has een processed, another if two ha!e, and so on" But y

definition, a finite


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of that stack" E.s can do e!erything that finite


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ar'itrary rec(rsi&ely en(mera'le &oca'(laries-can *(ite generally 'e s)ecified in

context-free&oca'(laries" $t is demonstrale that conte&t


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R e c ( r s i & e l yE n ( m e r a ' l e

P T ( r i n g M a c h i n e

1 % E K < s u f f

C o n t e x t "< r e e

2 % K E < s u f f

R e s 1 % K K 1 , 2

P P ( s h " $ o , nA ( t o m a t o n

3 % E K < s u f f

M e a n i n g " # s e $ i a g r a m % = :

S y n t a c t i c P r a g m a t i cE x ) r e s s i & e 9 o o t s t r a ) ) i n g

$ called the fact that conte&t


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e&pressi!ely stronger one" (e should 'ust look to see where this seems in fact to e possile for !ocaularies we

care aout, and what we can learn from such relations when they do otain"

Section 8: oo/ing Ahead

Let us recall what moti!ated this rehearsal of some elements of automaton theory and

introductory computational linguistics" $ suggested that a way to e&tend the classical pro'ect of

semantic analysis so as to take account of the insights of its pragmatist critics is to look

analytically at relations etween meaning and use" More specifically, $ suggested focusing to

egin with on two in some sense complementary relations% the one that holds when some set of

practices


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(e ha!e now seen that all of these notions can e illustrated with particular clarity for the

special case of purely syntactically characteri=ed !ocaularies" #he ailities that are EK e c e s s a r y f o r 1

$n my ne&t lecture, $ will introduce a !ersion of this comple& resultant pragmatically

mediated semantic relation 4what $ call for short eing @uni!ersally LZA5, and argue that it

constitutes the genus of which logical!ocaulary is a species" More specifically, $ will argue

that logical !ocaulary oth can e algorithmically elaorated from and is e&plicati!e of

practices that are EK


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successor !ersion raises the same uestion of !indication that $ consider for semantic logicism in

my second lecture% what 'ustifies according modal concepts this special, pri!ileged role in our

semantic analytic enterpriseN #his uestion is particularly urgent since the empiricist program

had always een>traditionally with ume, and in the 20 thcentury logical form, with Cuine,

particularly and specifically hostile to and critical of this !ocaulary"

$ will egin my treatment of modality, in my fourth lecture, with a consideration of this

uestion, and with a !indication of the role of modal !ocaulary that parallels the one $ will

already ha!e offered for ordinary logical !ocaulary% modal !ocaulary, too, can e

elaorated from and is e&plicati!e of, features integral to e!ery autonomous discursi!e

practice>features intimately related to, ut distinct from, those made e&plicit y ordinary

logical !ocaulary" $ will then enter into an e&tended treatment of the relation etween

alethicand deontic4modal and normati!e5 !ocaularies" (hen we look at those

!ocaularies through the lens of meaning


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pragmatic metaocabulary for alethic modal !ocaulary" $n my fifth lecture, $ will show

how e&ploiting that relation makes possile a new kind of directly modalformal semantics

that makes no appeal to truth% incompatiility semantics" $t in turn gi!es us a new semantic

perspecti!e oth on traditional logical !ocaulary, and on modal !ocaulary" #he final

lecture will then wea!e all these strands into a meaning


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proposing for e&ploring the intricate and re!ealing ways in which semantics and pragmatics

interdigitate will reuire wearing out a few"

D

Documents

Lecture One, J.locke