Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences

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human life, the violent condition of the poor vs. the obliviousness of the rich, etc., i.e. an atmosphere in addition to the information it conveys. Although the beware pickpockets sign is not great literature, for Forester the atmosphere it creates is the realm of great literature. Although great literature may contain information, e.g. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance about motorcycles, it is insufficient to be successfully applied by us to actually repair a motorcycle (Pirsig even says so in his author’s note). So what is atmosphere and how do we gauge its usefulness? Atmosphere stems not from something conveyed through particular words, but in their arrangement, their style. In this lies their power to elicit dread, mirth and calm, possibly even simultaneously. The realm of atmosphere is one that “answers to its own laws, supports itself, internally coheres, and has a new standard of truth.”(p. 81) The truth of information is its accuracy, the truth of a poem whether it “hangs together”. (p. 81) “Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself. Information is relative. A poem is absolute.” (p.81) Just as words have two functions, for Forster “each human mind has two personalities, one on the surface, one deeper down”. (p. 82) The surface personality “has a name” such as Robert Pirsig. It is this personality that lives in the world, has idiosyncratic habits, relationships, trials and tribulations of the everyday variety. The other, is trickier to pin down, for it has no name and its depths are a ground spring running through the deep personalities of the Pirsigs and Dickenses of this world. It is something general to all humans and inspires works general and accessible to all and often across time. And in this lies the anonymity of great literature: “The poet wrote the poem, no doubt, but he forgot himself while he wrote it, and we forget him while we read.” (p. 83). For Forster a signature belongs to the world of information, to the surface personality. The anonymity of great literature belongs to the realm of atmosphere, to deep personality. 4. Wittgenstein, the Life of Words and the Literariness of Language In the end, the sanity of Pirsig’s I character follows suite with the ghost of his previous self. Although Wittgenstein does not write much about insanity, some well know phrases from Philosophical Investigations about searching for hidden essences can be taken as a case in point, such as being on slippery ice with no friction (§107) in relation to the sublimity of logic and reaching a point when one’s spade is turned (§217) in relation to the regress of rulefollowing. When Phaedrus continued digging even after his spade reached bedrock, he lost friction with reality and went spinning away from instead of toward it. Both Pirsig’s I character, Polanyi and Forster each in their own fashion partake of this error of classical understandings ‘depth’ thinking, that meaning itself or its generation are something that come from inside of us: the I character for holding that the motorcycle is ‘a system of concepts’ that ‘is primarily a mental phenomenon’, the underlying gestalt urge of Polanyi’s scientific intuition, and Forester’s depth personality as the source of literary anonymity. However, they each offer something I think not only in line with Wittgenstein’s linguistic turn on rationality but can help to illustrate it. If we are to carry a lesson regarding language and reality from Pirsig’s novel, a hands-on metaphor of ‘tinkering’ is where the I character successfully overcame the classical/romantic split he saw in understanding. Yet on the scale of language as a whole, tinkering has its Science and the Art of Language Maintenance — Deirdre C.P. Smith limits. When confronted with Zande witchcraft, no slight adjustment or honing of their intellectual scalpel will lead westerners to accept the judgment of the poison oracle. It will simply not cut that way due to its mode of fabrication. We would need a different scalpel or an altogether different instrument to be at one with the Zande’s conceptions of the world. But does this not imply that we can neither redirect nor expand our rationality? This is where Forster’s information – atmosphere continuum and connecting anonymity to atmosphere are illustrative. I hope the reader can agree that language conveys information and atmosphere. Wittgenstein’s arguments against private language are in part a defense of it also requiring anonymity. Yet we saw above that an objection to classical understanding was the lack of a subject. Forster’s solution was an internal ‘ur’ subject running through us all which finds its expression in atmosphere. For Wittgenstein the kind of anonymity we find in language comes neither through a depth personality, nor a special place where words live in the mind. Even though Virginia Woolf in her essay “Craftsmanship” claims the later, she also writes the following which I think approaches Wittgenstein’s view: “Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations–naturally. They have been out and about, on people’s lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today—that they are so stored with meanings, with memories, that they have contracted so many famous marriages.” (p. 131) Earlier in this essay Woolf writes regarding the ‘usefulness’ of words. Making a word useful is to give it a single meaning. Forcing words to be useful is a problem. Doing so causes them to mislead us since “it is their nature not to express one simple statement but a thousand possibilities.” (p. 127) Put another way, language at the pure information end of Forster’s continuum conveys neither accurate nor inaccurate information since it is stripped of the use generated atmosphere against which accuracy could be determined; even a tram “Stop.” sign has atmosphere. The linguistic turn of Wittgenstein’s redirection of rationality is akin to Forster’s atmosphere and Woolf’s depiction of the life of words. Pirsig’s I character makes the mistake of attributing this multifarious character of words to a mental instrument unlimited in the directions it can cut. It is rather the case that we can divide things up differently because words, our concepts, do not have single meanings. Philosophy which carves concepts intellectually or claims they can or should have such single meanings goes wrong. Yes, we must know the system, only that the system we need to know to ‘tinker’ in language, as Polyani recognized, is neither explicit nor explicable hierarchically, we must live it. Concepts are anonymous, but not in the logical or scientific fashion of generality/universality. Meaning is on the surface but, although it sounds strange, deeply there, i.e. over time. Although this kind of meaning is anonymous, it is not stripped of the subject like classical understanding, and therefore, not of value judgments. Subjects are vehicles for the reproduction of language and in their use of words and phrases tinker with and fine tune it. Although we can use language like the poet, forgetting ourselves, and the listener hear our words as general not subjective statements, we are not being poetic, we are simply using words conventionally. But the convention came from somewhere and this is where the subject and their idiosyncratic position in the world can make a lasting contribution. 329
The thoughts in this paper are born of discussions this spring with Ralph Jewell, Helle Nyvold and Christian Erbacher on Wittgenstein and literature; the notion of ‘tinkering’ comes from Jewell’s reading of Pirsig. 330 Science and the Art of Language Maintenance — Deirdre C.P. Smith Literature Forster, E.M. 1951 “Anonymity: An Enquiry”, Two Cheers for Democracy, London: Edward Arnold. Pirsig, Robert M. 1974 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, London: Vintage. Polanyi, Michael 1964 Science, Faith and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —. 1952 “The Stability of Beliefs”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 3:11, pp 217-232. (http://www.missouriwestern.edu/ rgs/polanyi/mp-stability.htm) Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1953, 1997 Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell. Woolf, V. (1942) “Craftsmanship”, The death of the moth and other essays, London: Hogarth Press, reprinted from Listener, 5 May 1937: 868-69.
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31 Alexander Hieke Hannes Leitgeb H
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Reduktion und Elimination in Philos
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Distributors Die Österreichische L
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6 Inhalt / Contents Wittgenstein me
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8 Inhalt / Contents The Evolution o
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Formal Mechanisms for Reduction in
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4. Property language and theoretica
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imperatives, or commands in the for
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Referential Practice and the Lure o
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The Augustinian account confuses mo
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hurried to fix it on the page. The
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The Essence (?) of Color, According
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Literature Austin, James 1980 “Wi
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Wittgenstein’s Externalism - Gett
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Informal Reduction E.P. Brandon, Ca
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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An Anti-Reductionist Argument Based
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Did I Do It? -Yeah, You Did! Wittge
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Literature Did I Do It? -Yeah, You
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tween the two approaches. The task
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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On Two Recent Defenses of The Simpl
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Queen Victoria’s Dying Thoughts T
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Diagonalization. The Liar Paradox,
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Proof: Given a function ƒ from con
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that I am sure that it is true that
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experiencing something as a red pen
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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There can be Causal without Ontolog
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objects. But they also leave unansw
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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The Knower Paradox and the Quantifi
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lent. It also implies that an inven
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The Scapegoat Theory of Causality M
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We may have evolved a specialized c
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easoning have their source in the l
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Wittgenstein on Frazer and Explanat
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genstein 1993, p. 143). In order to
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an adequate syntactic analysis of o
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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Wittgenstein meets ÖGS: Wovon man
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3. Der Elementarsatz wird als Relat
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Literatur Glock, Hans Johann 2006
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Explaining the Brain: Ruthless Redu
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Occam’s Razor in the Theory of Th
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Literature Campbell, Donald T. 1987
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Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit der klassi
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Literatur Die Nichtreduzierbarkeit
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Let T I be the minimal theory of tr
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Does Bradley’s Regress Support No
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(3) Mutatis mutandis, realism has t
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Zeitliche Ontologie und zeitliche R
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Betrachtung ontologischer Fragen, M
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The decisive consequences of this a
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Benacerraf and Bad Company (An Atta
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offer a solution to the bad company
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Literature Benacerraf, Paul 1965
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"PA" by using "PA* ", at least at t
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Hard Naturalism and its Puzzles Ren
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The Mind-Body-Problem and Score-Kee
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mental properties, for instance, or
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kommt es zu einem gravierenden Miss
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Reduction Revisited: The Ontologica
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4. Conclusion Reduction Revisited:
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All in all, we have seen that reduc
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Physicalism Without the A Priori Pa
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Literature Cartwright, Nancy 1999:
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Wittgensteins Projektionsmethode al
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Schlussbemerkungen Wittgensteins Pr
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intentional states requires functio
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Relating Theories. Models and Struc
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Literature Relating Theories. Model
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e invoked in response to the questi
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Do Brains Think? Christopher Humphr
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4. Conclusion So do brains think or
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How Metaphors Alter the World-Pictu
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The Modal Supervenience of the Conc
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Literature van der Auwera, Johan an
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3. The Determination of Form by Syn
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Zwischen Humes Gesetz und „Sollen
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Assessing Humean Supervenience Amir
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determination thesis; it fails as a
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Aus der obigen Definition folgt, da
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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Ding-Ontology of Aristotle vs. Sach
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How do Moral Principles Figure in M
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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“Downward Causation”: Emergent,
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A with distinguished subset Z of te
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A Metaphysically Moderate Version o
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Literature Balashov, Yuri 2002 ''Wh
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“In der Frage liegt ein Fehler”
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Problems with Psychophysical Identi
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identity theory, or as a predecesso
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of the world. It only matters that
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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Four Anti-reductionist Dogmas in th
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notion of time and requires that so
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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Some Remarks on Wittgenstein and Ty
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concrete particulars can be subject
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phenomenal concept of experiencing
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Metaphorische Bedeutung als virtus
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speaker is then attaching a special
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„Vom Weißdorn und vom Propheten
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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„Die Einheit hören“ - Einige
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S4) the necessity of arithmetic is
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Getting out from Inside: Why the Cl
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Dispensing with Particulars: Unders
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Literature Dispensing with Particul
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Reichenbach’s Concept of Logical
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Defining Ontological Naturalism Mar
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Literature Jackson, Frank 1986. “
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properties are located. This proces
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‘our conceptual scheme’ “is c
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Properties and Reduction between Me
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Does this mean that metaphysics sho
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do not pick out pain in a system by
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The Writing of Nietzsche and Wittge
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his teachings. He coincides with hi
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sense of a proposition without firs
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Naturalistic Ethics: A Logical Posi
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Literature Kant, Immanuel 2006 Crit
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What we now require is a bridge the
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Species, Variability, and Integrati
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could mention the many sorts of iso
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to work this way. Classic examples
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The Key Problems of KC Matteo Pleba
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have embraced the myth of prose: it
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5. Prior’s Problem As Patrick Bla
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Reductionism in Axiology: the Case
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developing of cancer tissue in huma
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(2) One-way Nagelian bridge princip
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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Rethinking the Modal Argument again
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that we are to find the features we
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Atypical Rational Agency Paul Raymo
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Page 284 and 285: Two Reductions of ‘rule’ Dana R
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Page 290 and 291: Wittgenstein’s Attitudes Fabien S
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Page 296 and 297: Making the Mind Higher-Level Elizab
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Page 302 and 303: Mental Causation: A Lesson from Act
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Page 308 and 309: Reduction, Sets, and Properties Ben
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Page 332 and 333: A Division in Mind. The Misconceive
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Page 342 and 343: A somewhat Eliminativist Proposal a
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Page 372 and 373: Ethik als irreduzibles Supervenienz
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Page 376 and 377: Das ‘schwierige Problem’ des Be
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The Supervenience Argument, Levels,
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their relations both to the physica
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On the Characterization of Objects
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On the Characterization of Objects
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The Functional Unity of Special Sci
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size, location, temporal characteri
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Transcendental Philosophy and Mind-
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From Topology to Logic. The Neural
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From Topology to Logic. The Neural
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The Calculus of Inductive Construct
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The Four-Color Theorem, Testimony a
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experience. Of course, a detailed a
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Clearly x = y → x = ext y holds,
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Intentional Fundamentalism Petri Yl
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The second dimension to be consider
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The very existence of the special s
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Heil, J. (1999), “Multiple Realiz
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independent of what is the fact, fa
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415
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Publications of the Austrian Ludwig
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