Dasein - Monoskop

6 PART II
cording to this classical account, 'true' is a metalinguistic term that
expresses a certain correspondence between a sentence and a state
of affairs in the world. Now since according to the view of language
as the universal medium there is no vantage point outside language
from which this correspondence can be viewed and discussed, truth
as correspondence must either be replaced by a different concept of
truth or left undefined and inexplicable. 11
Finally, we come to a point where we have to compare the advocate
of language as calculus with the advocate of language as the
universal medium. With respect to formalism, i.e., to a purely syntactical
treatment of language, the two Idealtypen do not simply
adopt opposite stands. Instead, both are likely to be ambivalent
about formalism: both have reasons to be attracted by formalism,
but also have reasons for opposing it. A defender of the accessibility
of semantics will be attracted by formalism when the latter is linked
to the idea of re-interpretation. Yet the same thinker will be opposed
to formalism insofar as formalism appears as the denial of (the possibility
of) semantics. For a believer in language as the universal
medium, the argument works the other way around: such a thinker
will be repelled by formalism when it is conceived of as claiming that
we can disentangle language from its one fixed interpretation. Yet
the same linguist or philosopher will be attracted to formalism since
a formal, syntactical study of language is all that remains for us to
do in language theory in view of the ineffability of semantics. 12
Before turning to certain qualifications and to the main interpretational
theses of this study, it will facilitate subsequent references if
we summarize eight main ingredients of the universal medium conception
(UM-l — UM-8), and formulate the opposite theses that ensue
from the conception of language as calculus (C-l — C-8). This
can be done as follows:
(UM-l) Semantics is inaccessible;
therefore
(UM-2) we cannot conceive of a different system of semantical relations;
therefore
(UM-3) model theory and the conception of possible worlds are to
be rejected;