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Does Language REFER or Not?

Does Language REFER or Not?

Berkartes
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Posted 06/17/07 - 01:35 PM: Subject: Does Language REFER or Not?	#1
Argument against the Positivist notion that Words Don't Refer - Positivists like to claim that words don't refer. Well, in order to express this notion, a positivist must perform some sort of illocutionary acts, such as writing an essay or giving a lecture. Essays, as such, and lectures, as such, are, themselves, nothing but words. - In this particular case, since the *subject* of the positivist's essay or lecture is words and their referential capacity (or lack thereof), we might say that any essay or lecture on this subject would be *words about* words*. - In such essays, if the claim is made that words do not refer, then it must be true that the words of the essay or lecture itself* do not refer. And since we just agreed that the words of the essay or lecture are "words about words," said words cannot refer *to words. - But if said words fail to refer to words, then the essay or lecture is not really "about* words" at all, and therefore cannot be true of words. - Since the argument against the referential capacity of words must, itself, successfully refer to words in order for the argument to even work, it is self-defeating. - Long story short, you cannot argue that words don't refer without tacitly presupposing that they do, or at least that the words of your own argument do. Your thoughts?

CypressMoon
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Posted 06/17/07 - 02:58 PM:	#2
I agree that a lecture about the non-referential nature of words, must reference words in order for sense to be made. But the words that the lecture is referencing, are not in fact words within the lecture. They are words from without the lecture, in that A is not A, but rather A is X. The words they are referencing are objects of analysis, whereas the words that they are using are utilitarian, in that they serve a purpose in referencing an object, conceptually distinct from the words in usage during the time of the lecture. Hope this helps, Cypress Interesting topic by the way
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Cyberflaneur
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Posted 06/17/07 - 05:34 PM:	#3
Where did you get the notion that "Positivists" think that words don't refer?

void_one
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Posted 06/25/07 - 09:09 AM:	#4
Cyberflaneur wrote: Where did you get the notion that "Positivists" think that words don't refer? That's what I was thinking, as it sounds like a antihumanist debate rather then a positivist debate... positivism argues that there is a world in which language refers to, and this is inherently tied with views of humanism... Lanuage as the construction of the very referencces themselves and as a way of constituing 'reality', now that's a anti-humanist, non-positivist argument...

Chart
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Posted 06/25/07 - 03:47 PM:	#5
Addressing the original post: Putting the positivists aside for a moment, do words refer? In that question, you are implying "inherently", right? Isn't it, really, "do words inherently refer?" I think it must be. Right? It must be. Otherwise, if you accept the idea that words refer, but not inherently, then you reject the notion that words necessarily refer, and you wouldn't go there, right? So, to the point... Imagine that wind and rain erosion carved into the side of a canyon a form that, when people saw it, was universally identified as the word "Canyon". First, is it a word? It was perceived as such by people who saw it. But you don't have to accept that it was a word. This is probably your best route. But if you do say, boldy, "Fine, it's a word!", then does it refer?

spok_vot
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Posted 06/27/07 - 09:13 AM:	#6
Berkartes wrote: - But if said words fail to refer to words, then the essay or lecture is not really "about words" at all, and therefore cannot be true of words. What makes you think that the ordinary language expression "about" is the same thing as the technical concept of reference? Can we talk about unicorns? If we can does that there is such a thing as the reference of the word 'unicorn'?

void_one
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Posted 06/27/07 - 09:47 AM:	#7
I think in the Berkartes' comment he or she was having a go at Derrida's philosophy of referentiality.

Cyberflaneur
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Posted 06/27/07 - 07:39 PM:	#8
void_one wrote: I think in the Berkartes' comment he or she was having a go at Derrida's philosophy of referentiality. Then he would be making a strawman. Derrida nor any of the other postmodernists, as far as I am aware, ever contested the fact that words sometimes refer. The only people who has in the history of philosophy ever explicitly had theories of language that denouced all objective referrence were Locke and Hector-Neri Castenada. Locke was a 18th century philospher and Castenada was a 20th century analytic philosopher. Many philosophers in the natural language school like Wittgenstein, Strawson, Austen maintained that referential role of words are just one aspect of languistic usage and that there are manytimes words can be used nonreferentially. But that doesn't mean that they are never used referentially. The op should have supplied a direct quote or work from a specified someone (and not one out of context!) to argue against. I suspect that posts like these where someone rails against a school of thought without specified aims are just making strawmen modeled after phantoms.

Pete
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Posted 06/29/07 - 09:05 PM:	#9
Cyberflaneur wrote: The only people who has in the history of philosophy ever explicitly had theories of language that denouced all objective referrence were Locke and Hector-Neri Castenada. I didn't know this about Castaneda. Can you recommend an article by him on this?

Rochester
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Posted 06/30/07 - 04:07 AM:	#10
isn't there a basic distinction, after Frege, of Bedeutung as reference to things in the world and Sinn as reference to the sense of other words? I also got the impression that later Wittgenstein, the non-Positivist, abandoned reference as meaning in favour of the part words play in a language game, in other words how the words are used.

Cyberflaneur
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Posted 07/01/07 - 07:48 PM:	#11
Pete wrote: I didn't know this about Castaneda. Can you recommend an article by him on this? See his article called “He”: A Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness. Ration vol. 8 (1966), 130-57.

Cyberflaneur
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Posted 07/01/07 - 07:54 PM:	#12
Rochester wrote: isn't there a basic distinction, after Frege, of Bedeutung as reference to things in the world and Sinn as reference to the sense of other words? Yes, Frege made that distinction. Sometimes "Sinn" is slightly clumsily translated to "meaning."

Pete
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Posted 07/02/07 - 05:14 PM:	#13
Cyberflaneur wrote: See his article called “He”: A Study in the Logic of Self-Consciousness. Ration vol. 8 (1966), 130-57. Thanks. Looks like this requires a trip to the library, unfortunately. Ratio hasn't made those early issues available online yet. If you mean by 'objective reference' what I think you mean, then later Russell (e.g., "Knowledge By Acquaintance and Knowledge By Description") might fall into this camp as well, insofar as he takes genuine proper names to refer to sense-data. (Edit: I just found a summary of guise theory. Pretty shocking--no wonder I haven't run across it.) Edited by Pete on 07/02/07 - 05:39 PM

jleemcmahan
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Posted 03/27/08 - 09:35 PM:	#14
Long story short, you cannot argue that words don't refer without tacitly presupposing that they do, or at least that the words of your own argument do. Well, you're not specifying what you mean by 'refer.' I mean, I don't think that words (in themselves) refer. Words are arbitrarily produced symbols, they don't "do" anything. I can use them to refer, though. I know of no one in the history of philosophy who has ever argued (as was pointed out above) that words cannot be used to refer. The word 'refer' was thought up to describe just one of those things that we use words to do. We can also use them to christen ships, make jokes and describe the world; no one would ask, "Do words MAKE JOKES or Not?" Obviously not, on one reading, and obviously so on another.

litkey
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Posted 03/28/08 - 04:21 AM:	#15
There is the Internalist/Externalist arguments. If you think that "water" means h20 (is the same thing) then it would refer. Right?
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jleemcmahan
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Posted 03/28/08 - 06:47 PM:	#16
The Putnam argument establishes that when a speaker uses a word to refer, the referent is seemingly not determined by the speaker's mental states. That is, facts out in the world can have an effect on what is actually referred to by the speaker. None of that establishes that a word in itself has any referential power on its own. The internalist/externalist argument isn't really applicable (as I understand it). An internalist (say, Chomsky) would hold that what is referred to is determined entirely by the speaker's mind; 'water' being some sort of complex mental construct--literally. A word, under that point of view, still must be part of an act to bring off a denotation. BTW, I am not sure it would be a good move to argue that 'water' "means" H20, unless you intend to urge some very outdated claims (Russellian claims). For instance, the word 'this' doesn't mean what it is used to refer to (cf. Wittgenstein's 'Slab!' example). But perhaps you've got something more sophisticated in mind. Edited by jleemcmahan on 03/31/08 - 07:26 AM

7
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Posted 03/29/08 - 01:53 AM:	#17
If someone claimed that words do not refer, the first step would be to ask for a precise definition of "reference." I cannot argue against a position that I do not understand.

jleemcmahan
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Posted 03/30/08 - 04:56 AM:	#18
Yes, well, I don't think a precise, widely-accepted "definition" has ever been offered, since a correct definition of reference would be the solution of the problem of intentionality. There's Kripke's definition, Russell's, Stawson's, Donellan's, Evan's and Searle's. And there are more. The point is, none of these people suggested that words refer in themselves. Evans would be the closest (I think) to the OP's criticisms, since he has articulated a view "where words refer," though, he requires that it be part of an act to work (for what I think are obvious reasons). Maybe you meant something less specific than what I took you to say. I should say that I do think the OP needs to specify whether we're talking about a word, unread on page "referring" or if that word needs to be in use to refer. Edited by jleemcmahan on 03/31/08 - 07:26 AM

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