From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Understanding out of context
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:53:53 GMT
Organization: The Instrumentality
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
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In article <1992Aug11.190030.19907@sics.se> ag@sics.se (Anders G|ransson) writes:
> >>>>> In article <1992Aug10.234128.14256@news.eng.convex.com>, cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
...
>''PC> And what did "Old Witters" mean by a "grammatical sentence"? How does it
>''PC> differ from other kinds of sentences? Care to enlarge on this?

>What I had in mind was that the meaning of "sweet" is
>established by the use of sugar, so "sweet" would be "the taste
>sugar bring" so "Sugar is sweet" would be "sugar has the taste
>sugar has" which would of course then be tautological and that
>is what (I think) a "grammatical proposition" is.

I think you are tempted to make this characterization ("tautologous" or
"grammatical") because you are not thinking about any particular use for
the sentence "Sugar is sweet".

>(In so far the meaning of "sweet" is established without sugar
>this is of course wrong. But the question is not whether the
>meaning of sweet can be established without sugar, but how
>in actual fact (in a given society) it is established.)
>The context for a proposition like "Sugar is sweet" is often
>hard to find since everybody already knows that sugar is sweet. 
>If someone denies this we would immediately suspect the he entertains 
>different meaning of either "sugar" or "sweet" from us others.

Not necessarily. Perhaps he has suffered a brain injury: "Ever since the
accident, everything is turned upside down for me. Sugar is not sweet.
Violets smell like onions." Perhaps this unfortunate victim tastes sugar
from time to time, to see if it is, perhaps, sweet.

Yes, I suppose sugar tastes like sugar. To most of us, most of the time. But
I can think of contexts in which it might be informative to say, "Sugar
tastes sweet!" or "Sugar just doesn't taste like sugar." So is it ever
correct to say that some sentences are _necessarily_ tautologous? How can I
tell if they are tautologous or not--unless I know the context in which
they are used?

What can I tell about a sentence that has no context? Once again, I pick a
fluttering piece of paper out of the air. On it is scrawled, "The better
man flies the rake." What can I say about this? Well, it's a grammatically
correct sentence in the English language, isn't it? Sure: it has a subject
and a verb, and the verb has an object. I think...if the words mean what I
think they mean. If it's not a sentence in some language I don't know, a
sentence where all the words just happen to look like English words that
mean something totally different. 

So I can't even say whether it's a grammatically correct English sentence.
Can I tell what it means? Whether it's tautologous or not? I don't think
so. I can think of _possibilities_, yes; but I can't say anything for sure. 
-- 
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             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
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Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta