From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Expression
Date: 3 Jan 93 18:21:50 GMT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1hvnf2INNo4m@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> 
PL436000@brownvm.brown.edu (Jamie) writes:

>>From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)

MZ:
>>>>Well, I find the distinction between describing and expressing
>>>>*itself* to be bereft of cognitive value.  Does this mean that Gibbard
>>>>is doing expressivist philosophy?  Or does it mean that I simply don't
>>>>care for his brand of vacuous verbigeration?  You be the judge.

J:
>>>I don't know what it means. I decline to judge.

MZ:
>>A wise choice.  Or is it an apt feeling?

J:
>The former. An apt feeling is that I am proud of myself for declining.

Do you then decline in order to be entitled to pride for having done so?

J:
>>>If I say, "All Jews should be exterminated," I am expressing
>>>a hatred for Jews. But I am not describing it. If my statement
>>>is false, it does not follow that I have described my hatred
>>>incorrectly.

MZ:
>>Context, please.  If you say "All Jews should be exterminated," you
>>are expressing your hatred for Jews, and _eo ipso_, expressing your
>>state of mind.  Indeed, you are not describing either your hatred, or
>>your state of mind; however you are describing nature, -- that is,
>>your nature, -- to the extent that your expression is properly and
>>naturally a consequence of your personal constitution and makeup.

J:
>And so it emerges that you CAN distinguish between expressing
>and describing. For what I would have expressed is different
>from what I would have described.

I never denied the distinction; my point is limited to claiming that
every instance of expressing is also an instance of describing,
whether explicitly or implicitly.  This point is enough to refute
Expressivism.

MZ:
>>As to the questions of truth and falsehood, they depend on the
>>semantical analysis.  If your statement is analyzed as synonymous with
>>"I believe that in the best of all possible worlds, all Jews will have
>>been exterminated", then it is true iff you are sincerely asserting
>>it; on the other hand, what you are saying is synonymous with "In the
>>best of all possible worlds, all Jews will have been exterminated",
>>which may or may not be true, independently of your state of mind, iff
>>the Jews constitute a pernicious parasite, feeding off the innocent
>>Aryan mankind.

J:
>Yes, that is all quite sound. But I'm afraid I've lost you. I don't
>know why you wrote it.

I wrote it in response to your assertion regarding the truth
conditions of your hypothetical statement.

J:
>>>So you have a choice: either abandon your respect for de Finetti,
>>>or examine your rejection of the cognitive value of expressivism.
>>>
>>>(You might also choose to doubt my report, but I will if
>>>pressed provide a quotation.)

MZ:
>>You are getting too aggressive for your own good.

J:
>I doubt it. I don't think my good has suffered for my aggression.

Make it the good of your argument, so to speak.

MZ:
>>						     Expressivism, as
>>exposed above, sounds like a crock of shit; furthermore, I am resigned
>>to the fact that mathematicians make for bad philosophers.

J:
>I have answered your questions about Expressivism as well as I can,
>which I think turned out to be pretty well. I have supported
>the relevant distinctions. If it still sounds to you like a crock
>of shit, I absolve myself of blame.

I see no fault in your exposition.

J:
>However, I agree that mathematicians seem to make bad philosophers.
>And I also agree that de Finetti was incorrect about Expressivism.
>
>Indeed, I can think of no interesting example in which Expressivism
>is correct. Nevertheless I think it is coherent. I think it COULD
>be a correct account of certain chunks of language, though I think
>it happens not to be a correct account of much of ours. But my
>original point was that for an area, actual or possible, of
>language for which Expressivism is correct, there would apparently
>be meaningful predicates which express no property.

Surely you will not agree with Davidson, that coherence is a
sufficient condition of correctness, whether actual or possible.
Even so, I do not regard Expressivism as coherent.

J:
>I'll leave it at that, and accept Mikhail's facial gloss.

Enough has been said.

>Jamie

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Les beaulx bastisseurs nouveaulx de pierres mortes ne sont escriptz
en mon livre de vie.  Je ne bastis que pierres vives: ce sont hommes."
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech