tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post7556696492277699071..comments2024-03-28T13:40:26.497+00:00Comments on M-Phi: Cognizing a LanguageJeffrey Ketlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01753975411670884721noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-3991239175015045122013-05-22T10:58:25.371+01:002013-05-22T10:58:25.371+01:00Hi again Naomi,
Quick comment again,
"... s...Hi again Naomi,<br /><br />Quick comment again,<br /><br />"... slicing them into idiolects, as you suggest .."<br /><br />I simply don't suggest this. I suggest the opposite. For example, the language $L_{PA}$ of Peano arithmetic is not an "idiolect". An infinitary language such as $L_{\omega_1, \omega}$ is not an "idiolect". Etc. Biologically, $L_{\omega_1, \omega}$ couldn't be an idiolect.<br />I am simply opposed to your reductionist view. As an anti-reductionist, I am saying that there are countlessly many different languages, and infinitely many of them are not spoken, and not cognized, etc.<br /><br />What *speakers* speak are idiolects and there is *heterogeneity*, which needs to be explained. I think you're conflating languages with their speakers - and this means you're making the confusion that Lewis points out. But a speaker is not a language. A language is something quite different, and in some cases, a speaker may speak/cognize/use a language.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />JeffJeffrey Ketlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01753975411670884721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-8714615171414439702013-05-22T10:15:14.595+01:002013-05-22T10:15:14.595+01:00HI Naomi,
"too narrow as reducing a language...HI Naomi,<br /><br />"too narrow as reducing a language to what one person cognizes at time t does not explain what she shares with the people with whom she communicates with the help of that language"<br /><br />No, what I'm saying is anti-reductionist. And it does explain this. As far as I can tell, it's the *only* account that does. If A cognizes L and B cognizes L*, then L and L* may overlap, so that there are some strings to which A and B assign the same meanings. This is the explanation.<br /><br />What would your explanation be?<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />JeffJeffrey Ketlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01753975411670884721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-7727180039212267112013-05-22T10:10:08.131+01:002013-05-22T10:10:08.131+01:00Hi Naomi,
I've written about tokens before - ...Hi Naomi,<br /><br />I've written about tokens before - this is very important for Platonists!<br />For example, it is what lies behind confusions about ultra-finitism,<br /><br />http://m-phi.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ultra-finitism-types-and-tokens.html<br /><br />Numbers aren't tokens and numerals aren't tokens either. There are $\aleph_0$ many natural numbers, but only strictly finitely many tokens. So, numbers cannot be reduced to tokens. There are $\aleph_0$ many numerals, so numerals can't be reduced to tokens either.<br /><br />JeffJeffrey Ketlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01753975411670884721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-35294972655421751792013-05-22T00:31:16.854+01:002013-05-22T00:31:16.854+01:00Hi Jeff,
You point to two problems above. One is ...Hi Jeff,<br /><br />You point to two problems above. One is what languages are & how they are individuated, which is spelled out as a problem of mixed mathematicalia. The other is the problem of giving an account of how they are spoken. It seems to me that solving both will topple your Lewisian distinction between languages and cognizing.<br /><br />Your mention of concrete physical tokens is somewhat surprising because it seems to take the account very far away from the Platonism your readers have become accustomed to. But it is, of course, most welcome. So what needs conceptualising now is the various delimitations of language, (i) in terms of what counts as constituents parts of language: these are presumably sounds, marks and signs (as used in sign language); but of course, not every sound, not every mark and not every gesture is a language token, so we need a definition here about what's in and what's out; (ii) in terms of delimiting languages against each other: slicing them into idiolects, as you suggest, is unfortunately both too narrow and too wide; too narrow as reducing a language to what one person cognizes at time t does not explain what she shares with the people with whom she communicates with the help of that language; and too wide in that it does not offer a tool for distinguishing between the various languages one speaker usually cognizes (as a minimum various sociolects, very often a dialect and a "high" language, and often enough a mothertongue and one or more foreign languages); (iii) in terms of modality: is it every token actually produced by speaker S, or every token S could produce at time t? And does "produce" mean utter, sign or write only or also hear, watch or read & understand?<br />It is only once that's decided that we can actually get to what you want to study in your first component: all those "intrinsic syntactic, phonological, semantic, pragmatic, orthographic properties". In collecting them, so as to study them, you will find that you have to isolate and abstract them from what one (or more) speaker(s)/signer(s)/writer(s) do. But that means going through a very cumbersome exercise of collecting and ordering, and thereby reifying, the concrete/physical aspects of an activity. In then trying to come up with a theory of how they are spoken, or what you call "cognizing", we would be inventing something that somehow undoes what we did in that cumbersome exercise. It is like defining a relation between a way of walking and the walker (I am thinking of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks as a reductio). In other words, trying to come up with a "cognizing" relation is like first driving a wedge into something and then trying to fill the gap thus opened. What's the point of doing that?<br /><br />Note also that a theory of how languages are spoken is different from a theory of how parts of speech come to be meaningful for us, and the latter is necessarily prior to the former. The latter theory, it seems to me, must contain a large chunk consisting of perception.Naomi O-Knoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-82895073333673327012013-05-21T21:39:12.118+01:002013-05-21T21:39:12.118+01:00Hello Sara,
Thanks for that.
"... hence the...Hello Sara,<br /><br />Thanks for that.<br /><br />"... hence there has to be some notion of "speaking the same language" which explains how it is that we can communicate"<br /><br />Can we not communicate by speaking words with the same meanings? Idiolects can overlap, but still be distinct. After all, people frequently do not communicate; they miscommunicate! So, a conception of language needs to explain why and how this happens.<br />What sort of proposal do you have in mind for:<br /><br />L = L* if and only if [.......]?<br /><br />Would this condition "[....]" involve the concept of a shared language?<br /><br />JeffJeffrey Ketlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01753975411670884721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987609114415205593.post-77100533999805792822013-05-21T09:32:52.074+01:002013-05-21T09:32:52.074+01:00(If this seems somehow too obvious to need saying,...<i>(If this seems somehow too obvious to need saying, or perhaps silly, then what do you suggest?</i><br /><br />This seems to make language individual-specific, which misses out on the fact that language is a communicative tool, and hence there has to be some notion of "speaking the same language" which explains how it is that we can communicate. I suppose it's fine if you want to have such a narrowly defined view of individual language, but it seems to me to make the story way more complicated than it needs to be.<br /><br /><i>The main alternative, at least, the main one I can think of, would somehow introduce a speech community somehow in the very individuation of languages. But I think this is wrong.)</i><br /><br />Why?Sara L. Uckelmanhttp://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/people/academic-staff/details/persdetail/uckelmann.htmlnoreply@blogger.com