 Good morning. Hello So we were talking about tongue and so on and on Wednesday Friday on Friday will go on to look at Davidson's Discussion of truth and meaning Reality without reference, but Today I want to carry on thinking about tongue a little bit I talk is It's very powerful Once you have that sign in the language you can prove practically anything right if you have that was what we saw last time Once you let the ward in you can now prove Just anything you would like and it's not that you have to believe these things in advance Just by having the sign in the language. You can now prove lots of things that you couldn't have otherwise And In the case of tonk itself is I don't think we'd really go for it if someone did you wouldn't be persuasive But it's arguable that when we think about offensive language when you think about the idea of words that are in themselves Objectionable Then what that has to do with is something about the power that a bit of language can have Just in itself The idea is that if you have that sign in the language then you're going to be able to prove lots of things that you couldn't have otherwise And that's why it can be important to get that bit of language out of use So I want to start out by talking about that just a little bit and then go back to looking at tonk So the idea is not that just that sometimes people insult each other You know, I'm someone might say to you you've got very big ears You know, you might think well, I do not Perfectly proportioned you might think But so you might resist the insult but That's not that you wouldn't thereby Say that the notion of big or the notion of an ear should be thrown out of the language You might know you wouldn't say that bit of language in itself is objectionable When as people very I mean there are plenty of words here that if I scattered them around it was set of a fire bomb in The class right you would say you can't say that Even if you say them in quotation marks even if you use them very carefully So I don't want to actually get into giving examples and so on. I Don't want to take us into some kind of sewer So suppose you take a fairly a reasonably clip. Well, we'll see a Reasonably clean example suppose you take a phrase like latte drinker used pejoratively And So, I mean this is kind of a light example but just keep in mind for each of you there are going to be words that would really fire you up and You just don't do this out loud, but just as a mental exercise think how it would work for your favorite example So suppose you set you explain the meaning of latte drinker like this the introduction rule for latte drinker is If someone drinks lattes if someone's often seen carrying a latte Then you're allowed to infer they're a latte drinker I mean given that someone's a latte drinker You can infer from that that they're an elitist intellectual out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people So Look at that if you got that signed in the language You can now prove lots of things that you couldn't have otherwise Right, I mean Just talking to me you would never guess that I was any kind of a meetest intellectual Right, you would think I was just a regular guy You would think of course he's in touch with common people Listen to him But then you see me carrying the latte And now because you've got this sign in the language you can now prove something that you couldn't have otherwise Because you can prove that he's a latte drinker because look he drinks lattes and then given the elimination rule You can prove is an elitist intellectual out of touch with ordinary people now that's kind of I mean if The thing is think about what happens if you're born in a culture Or some term like that or some variant of it is just used the whole time That has a lot of power That will let you prove things that you couldn't have otherwise and it will be very hard for you to Know when to dig your heels in when someone is making an argument if someone says about me Look, he's an elitist intellectual out of touch with ordinary people And you say no, he's not and they say but look he's a latte drinker and you say well, yes, that's right Because look I mean the introduction rule is met And then you but you're familiar to I mean you never learned this explicitly It was just part of growing up, but you learned this as a part of your general education And that's the elimination rule given that someone's a latte drinker you can refer that Then just because you've got that bit of language in your vocabulary You're going to make those inferences. You're going to be able to prove those kinds of things I mean if you ask well, what intuitively is the problem here you might say well, I mean The trouble is with these kinds of examples that your tendency is to think well Where's wrong with them is something about the attitudes they embody or something like that But as that is hard to know quite for that means Intuitively it's something like is this right when you look at what the input is and when you look at what the out That's sorry when you look at what the input is and when you look at what the output is How come given that's the input that's the output There doesn't seem to be any balance here between the input and the output if that's all it took to prove X is a latte drinker. How come you can get so much out of it? That's a natural way to put the problem with the notion no balance between the input and the output But another way to think of it is you don't know what it takes for it to be true There's someone's a latte drinker if you're using the term governed by these rules Then what it what does it take to be true? Well on the one hand you might say well what it takes to be true that X is a latte drinker is just that they drink latte But if that's all it takes to be true, how come you can infer that thing about elitist intellectuals? And on the other hand if you say well in order to be a latte drinker They've got to be an elitist intellectual then how come you can establish it just by saying that They drink lattes I mean to take another kind of example Suppose you took I mean I just made this up. I strongly hope there's no such thing as a Yad There are no Yads here I suppose you take some kind of nationalistic slur like If you're from a geographical area G Then you can infer X as a Yad and from X as a Yad you can infer X is Unpunctual and so I say you know we're waiting for someone and I say well he's a Yad What do you expect? If you've got that I mean that again has the same kind of pattern to it that on the one hand You might think there's something there's something wrong with a balance here between the input and output rules And but also what are you saying? You say X is a Yad And you don't know what it is for X is a Yad to be true now so far this is just putting it in terms of negative cases where you're deriving something on Disagreeable about people from these kind of terms There probably are cases where you get something like this effect, but it's beneficial. I mean suppose somebody has a Terb like one of God's children now I don't mean that in a theological you can use this phrase like one of God's children without it actually expressing Some some kind of theological belief what I mean is if you say about someone well They're one of God's children you could be using that in a way where the introduction rule is something like they're a human being That's all it takes to be one of God's children There's got to be a human being on the other hand the output is that person ought to be treated with courtesy and respect and affection and so on You see what I mean, so there could be cases where you've got terms like that where there's no balance really I mean Frankly in my view it just isn't true that just because you're a human being ought to be treated with courtesy and respect and affection and so on There are famous counter examples But anyway Setting that personal view aside Those seem to be a kind of lack of balance there between the inputs net puts But the lack of balance there could actually be a good thing for the way it makes someone behave if someone's brought up with a term like that And a vocabulary that could actually make them behave better than they would have otherwise And again the point here is just the power that the better language has so I Think what's interesting here is not just exactly that the terms have undesirable consequences I mean they very often do and that's again a hot button cases where you say I don't even want that in a language You can't use that word even in inverted commas, even if you're just reporting what someone else said The thing is even you can have cases that are with the same general structure Where the consequences aren't particularly undesirable the problem is just the most basic thing that you can't say what those terms refer to Okay, so that's a very light schematic Overview of what what I think this kind of analysis is not mine. This was Put forward by Michael Dumit About 20 years ago, but it seems like quite a powerful analysis of why some terms are offensive And tonk is just a sterile example of an offensive term like that Is that reasonably clear what what I'm saying here, you know, I put it very schematically and so on but I I actually think this is quite important for your attitude to bits I mean practical life and everyday life. This is actually quite important for your attitude to terms you're using What is the bigger picture? Okay, the the very bigger picture that I will get on to in a moment is Wittgenstein was talking about there only being the use and forget about talk about truth or reference when you're characterizing meaning. Yeah, so Then prior said consider tonk Where you can describe the use but it's very hard to say in terms of truth or reference what tonk means. Yeah and I'm generalizing that a bit and saying if you took a Wittgenstein in view of That only being the use then your use of terms like latte drinker or yard or whatever your favorite hot button term is then There wouldn't be any way of criticizing that That's just what the word means. Yeah, so really the big picture here is how is it possible to criticize the use of a word? Yeah, and in Wittgenstein's picture. There is no way of criticizing it. It seems to me Yeah, you just say it's the way of my people. We all talk about latte drinkers and yads and so on That's that's just the way of our people. Yeah, I'm going to say quite a lot about that in a moment, but Just to anticipate what we're not to So would you take this one the excess from geographical area G and X is unpunctual, right? How What does it take to be a Yad is it enough is being a Yad just a matter of coming from geographical area G? Class is being a yet. What is to tell me is a yard refer to what is a predicate is a yard What's it talking about? Is there such a thing as being a Yad is being a Yad just the same thing as coming from geographical area G? Yes Well, I see why you say that because if you look at the introduction rule, it must be yeah Because the introduction rule tells you that's all it takes to be a Yad, right? But if you look at the elimination rule That isn't all it takes to be a Yad you go to be unpunctual Right, so if they're punctual people who come from geographical area G Which I bet you there are right then There's no such thing as being a Yad You don't know what it takes to be a Yad Do you have to be unpunctual and do you as well as coming from geographical area G? one two you could Well, you the thing is that you're not entitled to suppose that and actually if you think in real cases The other of negative terms being used about people of some nationality say I Mean the fourth point about these things is they're not in general true You see what I mean, so suppose it's not true So I mean the thing is in a sense you're right. You're you're supposing that ever over from geographical area G is Unpunctual. Yeah, that was true. This would work. Yeah but And then you could say well all the matter all look over matters for it is Being an unpunctual person from area from big coming from geographical area G is enough But in general in these cases, that's not true Yeah, and if it's not true, then there's no such thing as being a Yad Because you can't say what it takes Yeah, one two, yeah That's right, but the rest is an actual implication I mean this is the thing about these negative terms that you just take it for granted Given they use the term then all these negative consequences follow That could be well that could be true too. Yeah Yeah Right, but all you have to say here is take someone who would never in a million years Take someone from geographical area G who'd never in a million years be unpunctual. Yeah Hell's foundations would have to quiver before they were unpunctual, right? They're not probably unpunctual Yeah Well, that's a thing There is really no way of answering that question on the one hand They must be because of the introduction rule and then they're a hand. They can't be because then you don't get the elimination rule Yeah One two three, okay. Things are hotting up. Yeah Right That's right So we've got us to be able to spell out Why we're not entitled here and what I'm suggesting is the reason we're not entitled is there's no way of saying what the term refers to So to go back to the big picture here On Wittgenstein's view it seems like this kind of characterization Would be all there is to say about the meaning of a term and we're going to forget that stuff about reference Remember I kept saying so if Wittgenstein's right then what we were doing in the first nine weeks of the term is just a mistake Yeah, because the notion of reference is not central to language use What I'm suggesting is that here you can see a way in which it is central But you want to be able to talk about reference in order to explain what's going wrong in this kind of case Yeah, because the rule is perfectly coherent Yeah, it's actually it's not even like Tonk where you do get a contradiction. Yeah, you don't get a contradiction here Not in any obvious way Yeah One two right That's the thing. This is all you get so your task is to say what's wrong here. I Suppose you grow up right suppose you're in a village right next to mountain next suppose yard is a village, right? And you grew up in the village right next door Yeah, then So you go up saying a people where a yard Just on the basis of them coming from the village next door But you are willing to draw this conclusion just part of what a yard is that you draw this conclusion. Yeah That's what I mean that Given that let's suppose that there are plenty of unpunctual plenty of punctual yads potentially plenty of punctual people from that print Plenty of punctual people from that village. Yeah, then you have no way of saying which you're talking about Does that make sense? Okay, so the basic thing here, and I think I think this is true of pejorative terms in general that the whole point is you don't have to establish independently that they're unpunctual Given that they're from that area the term alone takes over and Drives you to these further expectations as to what they're like Usually works by you're saying where they're from Uh-huh Isn't that all right That is saying brother in a way. That's trying to say whether from come back to this Okay. Yeah. Yeah Yes, right, right sure That's right. I mean I'm with you and not wanted to push all the hot buses here, but that is exactly getting closer to real world examples here Yeah, yeah Explicitly spelled out and can be harder to can spell them out concisely is that yeah, I think that's right I think in real cases it would be harder to spell them out The whole point though is that they are there that is this cloud of negative things there Even though as you say it might be difficult to spell them out concisely That's right I Think what you're saying is completely right that usually there's a kind of it's not usually impossible I think to spell out something as to what the core implications are but Are you right that there would usually be a kind of cloud of associations here rather than some one simple definite thing like this But I think that's right, but the whole point about these terms is that there is that cloud of negative implications Yeah Yeah Yeah, well, that's the thing you could take the output as basic and use that to define What it takes to be a yard right what it takes to be a yard is but you be unpunctual But then you wouldn't have the right to say X is a yard Merely on the basis of the geographical area they come from But or merely on the basis of the sex Yeah in your example that that But the whole point about these terms is that's the way they work That you aren't allowed to say X as a yard merely in the basis of the geographical area They come from and then that's taken to all these implications Right Right, that's a little bit like the person who when someone says yeah, but aren't you assuming that all the yads are unpunctual? Yeah, that's that kind of case and the whole thing about this term though is It absolves you of the need to do the proof if someone did give up proof That everyone from this geographical area was unpunctual. It would be very hard to complain about this You see what I mean? It'd be very hard to say that's pejorative It's just a fact Yeah, and and similarly if someone did give a scientific proof in some other case that everyone with this characteristic and those further characteristics That would be it would be very hard to complain about that You know you might object and say the proof is not right, but if the proof is really really works Then what is the problem? Yeah, but the whole point about these terms is that they seem to allow you to do without the proof They get you the effect of the proof without having to do the work You just need the word the word does all the work for you That's why people want the words out You see what I mean? That's why I think it's rational to want the words out Yep one two Sorry one. I'm just going in the order. I saw you one two. Yeah, yeah Yes, that's right. Yeah, we're committed to that truth That's a way to put it. I think they're committed to that truth Yeah, they've got something here that works only if such a thing is true Yeah, but they needn't ever have spelled out that or thought about it. They've just got the word Yeah, and the word is doing all the work for them It's not that they think they've got some something here. They need to defend Yeah, the word does all the work for you Yeah, okay, so a scientific proof would really do the work. I mean that You really could have a basis. I have it. I mean Usually in practice when people give scientific proof try to give so-called scientific proofs in this kind of area Usually the science is no good Yeah, but it's I mean people are just so loaded about this kind of thing, but in the areas We're schematically talking about yeah, but If you could do the science, I mean For example, just the example of sex. There are differences between people based in sex. Some live longer Yeah, these things are just there There is no denying that some kinds of scientific proof are possible people from something from different geographical areas Just do the different genetic characteristics that you know, these things are just true That's not in itself the job. The difficult thing is when the word itself Means you can get these conclusions without having to prove anything. Yeah That's how I mean it to be yes Yes, or you if you meet if you meet all the conditions right here. Yes, right, right That's right That exactly pin points and that's the case to think about when someone is from that geographical area But is not unpunctual when someone is perfectly punctual, but they are from that geographical area. Yeah, this term proves merely having this word and your vocabulary Let's you prove that they are unpunctual Yeah, and then you see well something's gone wrong What's going wrong here? I'm suggesting that I mean it's it's When you think about it is difficult to understand Why there should be some words that shouldn't be in the language. Why not? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a I mean if they're meaningful words I mean if you could do it like a dilemma if they're meaningful words, then why shouldn't they be in the language? And if they're not meaningful, what harm can they do? Yeah, well, it's all the fusses about if they don't have a meaning but this kind of analysis lets you pinpoint That if you've got that pattern of use There can still be something wrong with them and that that's that's the point that your example make brings out. Yeah and Going back to the bigger picture That means that we need more to the account of meaning than Wittgenstein gives We need something about truth and reference in the account of meaning. I'm sorry. There's no question over here I thought I thought someone's had it up Okay, okay, so Let's go back and look at Tonk I think with Tonk it's natural to think that The problem with Tonk is That it lets you derive contradictions it lets you get all these While results like being able to prove anything and certainly there's a kind of lack of balance between the input rules and the output rules That's all right. The idea that there's a lack of balance here You can very weak introduction rules and you get a very strong elimination rule That's what is going wrong something like that but I Think there is something more basic here Which is you don't really know what someone's saying When they use Tonk I suppose someone says to you hey you've won five hundred dollars Tonk the sun is shining Always you're going out of class someone says to you. That was a great question. You raised Tonk the sun is shining Should you be pleased? It's very hard to know because on the one hand In order for someone to have the right to say that They had to establish both that you've won five hundred dollars and that the sun is shining So you might reasonably say that's great On the other hand, you know that you can't infer Sorry, wait a minute. I've done this around the wrong way Okay, let me Someone has the right to let me go back to the introduction rule. I'm going ahead to the next example Given the introduction rule for Tonk Um Someone can say You won five hundred dollars Tonk the sun is shining if they've either established that you won five hundred dollars Or they've established that the sun is shining right So they don't need to have established both So they could have said that without having established that you won five hundred dollars Yes, so Sorry Only if the sun is shining right But all right, I mean if the sun is shining that of course is reason to rejoice, but you might prefer the five hundred dollars right on the other hand Since they've said Tonk you can infer Both a and b so you can infer that you've won the five hundred dollars from what they say So you should be pleased so When someone says that to you you won five hundred dollars Tonk the sun is shining suppose It's someone completely reliable and authoritative someone whose words you trust implicitly. Well What should you make of this? I Mean leave the right to say it if one or the other of you won five hundred dollars or the sun is shining So that means you don't have any great reason to be pleased yet But on the other hand you can't infer from what they say that you won five hundred dollars The basic model is you actually no idea what they're talking about I mean, it's not this is really not your problem. The thing is a sign doesn't really mean anything You don't know what the sign means So you don't really know what someone's saying when they use tonk So I want to suggest it's not Just that you can prove lots of wild things using tonk or these signs that are out of balance. It's that There's a subtler thing of just not really having a meaning. So suppose you Let's take this round the other way. I mean tonk is kind of like a Swaggering flamboyant gangster of a term that will kind of take charge of all of your language Once you let it in but I mean in movies where they're swaggering flamboyant gangsters there are up there is often the peculiar and very weird sidekick Who's how should I say less swaggering but just as weird in their own peculiar way? So what I mean is suppose we consider star The introduction rule for star star is like a middle image of tonk The internet here's the introduction rule for star From if you get a and you get B you can infer a star B That's all right So it's like the introduction rule for and Yes, that's okay Now here's the elimination rule if you get a star B and you can infer C from a and if you get a star B and you can infer B Sit C from B. So either way you get C. They can infer C Right, that's the elimination rule So that's like the elimination rule for R Yeah So the problem with star isn't that you can infer too much from it Right because you can have me and fed anything at all from it But it's so very weird So is that clear what is that I mean at this stage that does that just pop into you can you see right away? What's going on here? Yeah So you say I forget the introduction rule is from a and from B you get a star B and then that's the elimination rule But the natural question here is there's something about balance I mean if the introduction rule is so strong if you demand both A and B and Then you can only what why can you only then infer? C if you can get C from either a or B Why wouldn't it be enough to just get C from a or just get C from B? You see what I mean and that the introduction rule was so strong. So why is this so weak or If you put it another way if all you're going to do with star is this is Infer C given you can get C from a and given you can get C from B Then That's all you're going to do with it. Why should you demand both a and B in order to get a star B? Yeah, and so Now the problem there is not a tall like tonk or these offensive terms where the problem is how much you can infer The problem with star is it's so it's so peculiar and shut off You can't get enough out of it. So someone says to you you've won $500 star. The Sun is shining Should you be pleased about that? Well in order for them to have the right to say a star B They had to have proved that the Sun that they've won $500 and that the Sun is shining right to get this They had to approve both of those things But you're not allowed to infer either of them Because the elimination rule is like the elimination rule for all four or yeah, so should you be pleased? You have no idea If someone uses star then you just literally don't know what they're saying But that's not because you can infer all the wrong consequences. It's because you can't infer enough consequences You want to get more in the way of consequences than you should do here than you're allowed to do here Yeah, I don't know if that helps. I hope I thought that would help So the general point here is just Specifying a pattern of use for a term saying here's the way we're going to use the term and this is our custom That's not enough to give it a meaning. There is more to meaning than that okay, so Just to spell this out fully explicitly Remember last time we looked at the trouble when you try and give the truth table for tonk Yeah You can say well if I've got a and B both true then is a tonk B true Well the elimination of the introduction rule for tonk tells you that's going to be true Because if you could a you get a tonk B if you could be you get a tonk B So you could both a and B you're going to get a tonk B and the elimination rule says if you get a tonk B You could a and you could be so that top line is alright. I hope that stop me that kind of thing goes too fast I hope that Tonk is familiar at this point to you guys. Yes, okay But then with the second line when You say One's true and the other's false and the third line for some students the first one's false and second one's true For those second and third lines what do you say? Well according to the introduction rule it comes out true both times because all you need to infer a Tonk B is you need one or the other of a or B So you say well that's true both times But from a tonk B. You're supposed to be able to infer both a and B So that requires that both a should be true and that B should be true But that means that the these lines should be coming out false rather than true when you look at the elimination rule Although that really means is you can't have them come out true You can't have it come out false. You just have no idea what to write in there Yeah, and the same is true of star So the problem with star is not you can infer too much and you can infer the wrong things But it has exactly the same kind of problem that if you state say What's the truth table for star? Then you say well if I got both a and B then by the introduction rule I get a star B and by the elimination rule will certainly come out Correct that if I can infer C from a and I can infer C from B Then I get C if they're both true then in the second and third lines were once true in the others false Well according to the introduction rule you need both a and B To get a star B so that should be coming out false both times but according to the elimination rule it should be coming out true because So long as you can get C all the elimination rule demands is that you'll be able to get C from both a and B to get C And that only requires that one or the other of a and B should be true So should be coming out true. So once again, you've no way of saying if that should be true or false You just have to leave a blank. There's no truth table for star So I'm saying this problem with star is the same as a problem for tonk and Similarly, if you ask what Yad refers to If you just look at the introduction rule all that Yad should refer to is a characteristic of coming from geographical area G If you look at the elimination rule it refers to the characteristic of coming from a geographical area G and being unpunctual But that there is no characteristic that isn't a single characteristic And there's no such thing as being a Yad So we need proof and reference in Yes, okay, so you could win two prizes. Okay. Yes Right Winner That's right The truth table is always for a connective right is for and or if then or star or tongue Right exactly yes, yeah No Okay, carry on carry out you could infer you confirm you couldn't infer you've won both prizes, which was the example. Yeah, that's right And so I don't wish to seem unintelligent, but I don't really understand what's going on look look That's right. So C is equivalent to a or B Or I see so you're using X as our winner rather than X as one both prizes Is it right? Okay, okay Let's discuss this after class and I'll raise it at the start of next time I don't think it's your problem. It's just that it's taking me so long to figure it out. Okay, okay Okay, so let me whistle through what I think the the larger picture implications are here I Think I said Vic Einstein's basic point In when he's talking about rule following It is really a good one and the simplest version of it is you can't derive the rules for logical constants from the truth tables Right. I said that many times and I think that's completely There's just no getting around that To do the derivation you already have to use logical rules Yes, you can't regard truth tables as coming first and driving your patterns of transition for logical signs But you could think of it like this that when you've got knowledge of truth conditions or reference Then what that's doing is is giving you knowledge of your objective in using language the way you do We don't just in fact reason like a tometer back and forth Using particular systems of inference. We have some picture of what we are about in using language and The truth tables Give us knowledge of what we are doing when we're using the logical constants what's going on when we're using those signs And so just with the logical signs We need the truth table to make it intelligible to ourselves What we're doing here We are not like machines who are simply reacting to what's going on around us We have a picture of what we're what our objectives are in the use of language So I think it isn't right to say with Wittgenstein There's only the use is right to say knowledge of truth conditions can't be what drives the use But we have a conception of what why we're using words in the way we do So I think maybe we could acknowledge Wittgenstein's point that nothing that uses more fundamental The knowledge of truth conditions isn't derived from knowledge of truth conditions But keep a role for truth conditions anyhow and say if we're going to use a bit of language intelligently there has to be such a thing as your grasp of truth conditions So the whole project in the first part of the class had to do with Explaining the truth conditions of sentences in terms of the references of their parts so we were focusing on singular reference and the way that terms like water and so on refer So knowledge of truth conditions derived from knowledge of reference could be providing as with knowledge of What we're about in our use of language And you can say then to make sense of going right or wrong in particular cases the reason that we can make sense of the idea of a born cruiser or of An individual being right and the rest of the community being wrong is that We have a conception of what right or wrong in the use of the science comes to Is not just a matter of using an accordance with everyone else We don't have to appeal to the community to explain what right or wrong come to and The thing we've been just talking about with offensive terms or with tongue or with star There are certain systematic ways of using words that are just wrong because you can't give them a reference so just to Go back to where we came in with the Wittgenstein I was saying you can't regard the bid in the middle here as being what keeps us together That's what Wittgenstein's right about you can't regard your knowledge of truth condition in that sense as being What holds the whole use together the use is more fundamental than that that if you and I diverged Then that bid in the middle wouldn't be able to do any work in keeping us together so The thing is there could be a role for this even though it wasn't a role in keeping us together That's to say even though This just drops out so far as what keeps us together and our use of language goes Be able to specify the reference of your signs may still be important It may still be important in meaning that there's such a thing as what you're about in using the sign Making it the case that you are using the sign correctly Whatever the use is it has to be possible to represent it as capturing how things are with a particular subject matter Okay, we're on to Davidson next time. Thanks