Dear Reader
This post I have published in response to a comment to my last post. So, if you take a genuine interest in following the conversation please read that post (Lesson 7) first and then also read the comment by Anonymous. After that it will be reasonably safe to continue herewith.
Anonymous, regarding your very sophisticated desire to draw a distinction between meaning and determinacy, by challenging whether it is true that assertions need to be determinate to be meaningful (in the strict sense of the word, of course) I respond thus: By way of example you have given the possibility of observation influencing, on a sub-atomic level, the length of a piece of string. If I understand correctly, this would then alter the very thing being observed and therefore, in a nearly ironic way, making observation (verification) both the vehicle for meaning and simultaneously the underminer of meaning, because it changes that which is observed.
I would have to agree that in the strictest and most technical sense this sub-atomic change, if such a thing even does happen, may at first seem to pose a conundrum for semantic theory if it is verificationist by nature. However, my suggestion is this: The conundrum is more one for the scientists; who presumably are looking for exact descriptions for the objects and phenomena of the real world. Things changing on a sub-atomic level matters for a scientist, but does it matter for a linguist? Even for a verificationist linguist? When we look at linguistic behaviour, we must concede that most of referencing to the world happens on a supra-atomic level (unless we are intentionally making reference to actual sub-atomic structure and behaviour, of course). This would certainly be the case with an assertion about a piece of string which goes, "This piece of string exists". Such an assertion, I think you will agree, does not make refernce to the identity of a piece of string on a sub-atomic level. So, if there is a piece of string which can provide the truth conditions for the above statement, at the moment of speaking, then that is all that counts for a normal speaker. However, if a scientist says that "This piece of string exists" and on attempting to test such a hypothesis finds that, on every testing, the atoms are diminished, then my heart goes out to her. She is dealing either with an issue of identity (Is it still the same piece of string?) or she is dealing with a new phenomena (Do things change when observed?). But how will she ever know? It's a scientific problem but not a linguistic one. The study of science and language must come apart, you see.
But where semantic theory must stay true to verification is in the way that if an assertion is indeterminate (if there cannot exist knowable truth conditions for it) then it must deem the assertion meaningless- as in contentless. However, we should not get too concerned with the term meaningless either. It is not intended as grimly as it may come across.
And, dear and most beloved Anonymous, what to say about the repeatability of verification/falsification? Your questions are challenging, indeed. Let it just suffice to say that, according to something like a verificationist theory of meaning the meaning of assertions are best measured in the moment of articulation. Verification theory is problematic when it tries to comment of assertions made about the past or future, of course. This in itself, even without the possible non-repeatability of verification, poses a problem. Just verb tenses alone pose a problem. And I think the non-repeatability of verification (if and when this be the case) holds similar, but not exactly symmetrical problems, for the semantic theorist. The best way to address your question (and you ask this with the best of them, I assure you) would be to see 'meaning making' as a linguistic activity with overwhelmingly temporally based qualities.
Perception as context bound (so exceedingly astute as always, Anonymous): We know that Locke too made much of the fact that perception is conceptually loaded and that there simply is no overarching objective view point by which we can know the world around us. In other words, in the case of linguistic theory, an objective viewing of conditions which would make our assertions true. The bearer of the content of our language. We do seem to be compelled to accept that we simply cannot prove or demonstrate (except maybe by way of deduction, but this will not solve the problem will it?) that we have unbiased access to matters of fact. And this, undoubtedly, does not bode well for the verificationist. But I think this problem is sidestepped, and not just with the practice of some Sophistry, by remebering that we are busy with a meta-discourse here. In other words, we are attempting to lay out the principles for how meaning is imported into language. The task is not to actually import the meaning but to suggest that the content of our assertions, particularly if the assertions are making literal refernce to a world of mind independent objects and properties, is best seen as derived from the world to which it is making reference. This seems a priori true. If we are making reference to an objectively existing world the the content of our referncing assertions should be derived from such a world and we, in principle, we should at the very least expect to have access to the world we so gibly make reference to. If it turns out that Locke, and yourself dearest Anonymous, are right about possibly not having access to an independently existing world then this should not alter the requirements for meaning, I think. It merely says that most of what we do when we speak is misguided. But we should not lower the bar for meaning just because we cannot know whether we are able to achieve it.
Ah, the contstructivists. What to say about such a group of deserters? I ask this: Is it good and right to resort to saying that reality consists entirely as an extension of the human (and other thinking things') mind because one feels a bit despondent of the possibility of knowing an independently existing reality? To each his own, I suppose. My suggestion is that we remain agnostics about the existence of an external world. For the very reasons that yourself and John Locke mention in the previous question. And, constructivists being what they are, are not always very clear or very unified (but the latter should not be held against them- even though the first should) about what is they advocate. So, I caution the reader here: Some constructivists maintain that there are matters of fact which exist independently of our minds, but as we have no access to these (and this seems a priori true) such facts are irrelevant. And some say that there simply is (as in does not exists at all) matters of fact beyond what has been constructed by our minds. You will, I hope, agree that these are two different stand points, with enormously different further entailments. My comment to the first standpoint is that those matters of fact beyond our grasp are only irrelevant if completely ignored- in other words, not ever made reference to. But we know that this simply is not the case, which makes them very relevant and extremely problematic too. To the second standpoint I answer thus: Who knows? But I think it unlikely.
Once again, most admired Anonymous, your conversation is awesome- in the strictest sense of the word.
And so we reach the end of this. Till later.
