In article <C7Byq8….@grebyn.com>
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
f…@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>In response to my query about Lakoff and Johnson’s _Metaphors_We_
>_Live_By_, Ken writes:
>>From my point of view there are two problems with it:
>> 1. The notion that the "conventional metaphors" of our
>>language affect/determine how we think about reality (whence the
>>title) is pretty much just warmed-over Whorfianism: Benjamin Lee
>>Whorf (& Edward Sapir) argued in the first half of the century that
>>the structure of a community’s language significantly determines how
>>the community thinks. No empirical evidence for this view was ever
>>brought to bear and in the actual field of linguistics is not a live
>>issue. The problem with all forms of Whorfianism is that
>> 2. It completely overlooks the historical dimension…
>I’m going way out on a limb here, because I certainly don’t know
>this field very well, but I thought that at least some of what
>George Lakoff writes goes in the mind-affecting-metaphor direction–
>i.e., opposite to that of the well-known and often-decried Whorf-
>Sapir point of view, which is metaphor-affecting-mind. The subtitle
>of Lakoff’s _Women,_Fire_,and_Dangerous_Things_ is "What Categories
>Reveal about the Mind." *If* (I’m not sure he is) Lakoff were
>coming from this brain-first direction, then the historical dimension
>would assume less importance, of course–because presumably our
>brains haven’t changed all that much in the past umpteem thousand
>years.
>Does Lakoff muddy the waters as to whether he’s talking about
>mind –> metaphor, vs. metaphor –> mind? Is that the problem?
Don’t worry, — Lakoff doesn’t know this field very well, either. In
fact, I’ve yet to discover any scholarly field in which he could claim
deep knowledge. Not that it stops him from repeatedly making pompous
pronouncements regarding the plural subjects of his ignorance. I am
especially tickled by his egregious misinterpretation of what he dubs
"Putnam’s Theorem", — a nearly trivial proposition from the Appendix
of _Reason, Truth and History_, where Putnam, in effect, shows that
isomorphic structures are elementarily equivalent. This factoid is so
trivial, that I’ve yet to find it mentioned even as exercise, in any
of the numerous model theory texts in my possession. I rather doubt
that Putnam is particularly fond of having his name associated with
this bit of fluff, rather than, say, numerous fundamental results in
the hierarchy theory, or diophantine sets. I know for a fact that his
own interpretation of the said result is the very opposite of
Lakoff’s. Not that this, or any other discrepancy with reality, could
ever persuade anyone of the fallaciousness of his arguments, nor dull
the meretricious appeal of his anti-realist dogma in linguistics. On
the alternatives to which, see the writings of Jerrold Katz.
N.B. The term "category theory" has a well-defined extension that has
nothing in common with the alleged subject matter of Lacoff’s
elucubrations.
> –Fiona
cordially,
mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l’esprit des hommes."
Mikhail Zeleny (zel…@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:
: In article <C7Byq8….@grebyn.com>
: >Does Lakoff muddy the waters as to whether he’s talking about
: >mind –> metaphor, vs. metaphor –> mind? Is that the problem?
: Don’t worry, — Lakoff doesn’t know this field very well, either. In
: fact, I’ve yet to discover any scholarly field in which he could claim
: deep knowledge. Not that it stops him from repeatedly making pompous
: pronouncements regarding the plural subjects of his ignorance. I am
: especially tickled by his egregious misinterpretation of what he dubs
: "Putnam’s Theorem", — a nearly trivial proposition from the Appendix
: of _Reason, Truth and History_, where Putnam, in effect, shows that
: isomorphic structures are elementarily equivalent. This factoid is so
: trivial, that I’ve yet to find it mentioned even as exercise, in any
: of the numerous model theory texts in my possession.
Surely you own Chang and Keisler, Mikhail: p. 32.
–
Christopher Menzel Internet -> cmen…@tamu.edu
Philosophy, Texas A&M University Phone —-> (409) 845-8764
College Station, TX 77843-4237 Fax ——> (409) 845-045
Lakoff makes reference to the fact that no attempt to impose an axiomatic
basis on natural language semantics will succeed in specifying a unique model.
That means, in particular, there exists a consistent interpretation of
the words comprising The Lord of the Rings that (a) respects whatever semantic
contraints you postulate for the words in the English language and the contexts
they may occur in, and (b) bears no resemblance to the story.
This is not a trivial result.
In article <1thro0$…@tamsun.tamu.edu>
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
cmen…@kbssun1.tamu.edu (Chris Menzel) writes:
>Mikhail Zeleny (zel…@husc10.harvard.edu) wrote:
>>In article <C7Byq8….@grebyn.com>
>>>Does Lakoff muddy the waters as to whether he’s talking about
>>>mind –> metaphor, vs. metaphor –> mind? Is that the problem?
>>Don’t worry, — Lakoff doesn’t know this field very well, either. In
>>fact, I’ve yet to discover any scholarly field in which he could claim
>>deep knowledge. Not that it stops him from repeatedly making pompous
>>pronouncements regarding the plural subjects of his ignorance. I am
>>especially tickled by his egregious misinterpretation of what he dubs
>>"Putnam’s Theorem", — a nearly trivial proposition from the Appendix
>>of _Reason, Truth and History_, where Putnam, in effect, shows that
>>isomorphic structures are elementarily equivalent. This factoid is so
>>trivial, that I’ve yet to find it mentioned even as exercise, in any
>>of the numerous model theory texts in my possession.
>Surely you own Chang and Keisler, Mikhail: p. 32.
Argh! so much for my habit of skimming over the introduction. There
it is, asserted without proof, or attribution. I must warn Putnam; it
seems that a priority fight is imminent.
>–
>Christopher Menzel Internet -> cmen…@tamu.edu
>Philosophy, Texas A&M University Phone —-> (409) 845-8764
>College Station, TX 77843-4237 Fax ——> (409) 845-045
cordially,
mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l’esprit des hommes."
In article <1ti3bdINN…@uwm.edu> ma…@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:
>Lakoff makes reference to the fact that no attempt to impose an axiomatic
>basis on natural language semantics will succeed in specifying a unique model.
>That means, in particular, there exists a consistent interpretation of
>the words comprising The Lord of the Rings that (a) respects whatever semantic
>contraints you postulate for the words in the English language and the contexts
>they may occur in, and (b) bears no resemblance to the story.
>This is not a trivial result.
But surely it is not true, or you are not reading what I’m writing.
–
Christopher D. Green chri…@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department cgr…@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
In article <1993May21.134753.8…@psych.toronto.edu>
chri…@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1ti3bdINN…@uwm.edu>
>ma…@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:
MH:
>>Lakoff makes reference to the fact that no attempt to impose an axiomatic
>>basis on natural language semantics will succeed in specifying a unique model.
No. The "fact" is true *only* for purely extensional Tarski-style
model-theoretic semantics, which makes no effort to axiomatize the
fixing of reference, such as might be accomplished by syntactic
metalinguistic representations of Fregean senses.
MH:
>>That means, in particular, there exists a consistent interpretation of
>>the words comprising The Lord of the Rings that (a) respects whatever
extensional
MH:
>> semantic
>>contraints you postulate for the words in the English language and the
atomic
MH:
>> contexts
>>they may occur in, and (b) bears no resemblance to the story.
Fer sure, fer sure. Tell you what, — give me a concrete example, in
the manner of Putnam’s "cats and cherries", and I promise to shoot it
down right away.
MH:
>>This is not a trivial result.
It is, however, trivial mathematically. What the theorem says, is
that Tarskian models can fix identity of structure, but not identity
of individuals. Well, just *one* facile way of addressing this issue,
is by postulating an anatomic conception of nature, whereby there are
no individuals to be found therein, and all apparent instances of
reference to individuals, are *really* referring to structures, —
recall that, _pace_ Aristotle, substances *are* structures (see Monty
Furth’s book on this subject), while all reference to _bona fide_
individuals, if they even exist, is indifferent to their specific
identities, — was it Dirac who suggested that there existed but one
electron? Another way is suggested in my above comments. In any
event, the best you can get from Putnam-style arguments, is a point
against strong, epistemically transparent foundationalism, on which
the Peircian ideal "end of scientific inquiry" will have succeeded in
identifying and circumscribing the ultimate structural constituents of
phenomenal and noumenal nature.
CG:
>But surely it is not true, or you are not reading what I’m writing.
Good point, Chris, but a bit facile all the same.
>–
>Christopher D. Green chri…@psych.toronto.edu
>Psychology Department cgr…@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
>University of Toronto
>Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
cordially, | Personne n’est exempt de dire des fadaises.
mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu | Le malheur est de les dire curieusement.
In article <1993May20.221707.24…@husc3.harvard.edu> zel…@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
>In article <C7Byq8….@grebyn.com>
>f…@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>>Does Lakoff muddy the waters as to whether he’s talking about
>>mind –> metaphor, vs. metaphor –> mind? Is that the problem?
>Don’t worry, — Lakoff doesn’t know this field very well, either. In
>fact, I’ve yet to discover any scholarly field in which he could claim
>deep knowledge. Not that it stops him from repeatedly making pompous
>pronouncements regarding the plural subjects of his ignorance. I am
>especially tickled by his egregious misinterpretation of what he dubs
>"Putnam’s Theorem", — a nearly trivial proposition from the Appendix
>of _Reason, Truth and History_, where Putnam, in effect, shows that
>isomorphic structures are elementarily equivalent. This factoid is so
>trivial, that I’ve yet to find it mentioned even as exercise, in any
>of the numerous model theory texts in my possession. I rather doubt
>that Putnam is particularly fond of having his name associated with
>this bit of fluff, rather than, say, numerous fundamental results in
>the hierarchy theory, or diophantine sets. I know for a fact that his
>own interpretation of the said result is the very opposite of
>Lakoff’s. Not that this, or any other discrepancy with reality, could
>ever persuade anyone of the fallaciousness of his arguments, nor dull
>the meretricious appeal of his anti-realist dogma in linguistics. On
>the alternatives to which, see the writings of Jerrold Katz.
>N.B. The term "category theory" has a well-defined extension that has
>nothing in common with the alleged subject matter of Lacoff’s
>elucubrations.
Lakoff (do ANY of us know how to spell his name right ?) may
be a word meister, but he does bad things to what other people write.
IMHO, he wouldn’t even make a good deconstructionist. During Desert
Storm, for political reasons, he wrote an antiwar piece that accused
the United States government of being trapped by its own metaphors.
This might not have been so bad, after all, all’s fair in political
rhetoric – but in so doing he managed to butcher Clausewitz, confusing
the contents of Clausewitz’s "On War" with Herman Kahn’s "Escalation"
and Thomas Schellings book on nuclear deterrence. Lakoff completely ignored
the meaning of Clausewitz’s central thesis, that war is a continuation
of policy by other means, instead incorrectly attributing post WWII
theories of assurred destruction to Clausewitz.
I suppose if one doesn’t care to preserve the meanings of individual
words, it becomes easy enough to make entire books indistinguishable.
If all texts are equal, how then will a text interpret itself ?
(Fundamentally speaking, of course).
Bill R.
–
"The only proposals in the Senate that I "My opinions do not represent
have seen fit to mention are particularly those of my employer or
praiseworthy or particularly scandalous ones. any government agency."
It seems to me that the historian’s foremost – Bill Riggs
duty is to ensure that virtue is remembered,
and to deter evil words and deeds with the
fear of posterity’s damnation."
– Tacitus, _Annals_ III. 65
The cross-posting of this thread to all (!) of sci.philosophy.tech,
sci.logic, and sci.lang is disturbing to me. Combined with what I
find to be a difficulty in understanding what the experts (I appreciate
all of y’all’s responses, but I wish you could write to your audience!)
have to say…this cross-posting puts further enlightenment on the
subject of Lakoff, basically out of reach for me.
Why does this have to happen? If Lakoff’s popularizations of lin-
guistic theory are such a problem, then why should not those who under-
stand the nature of that problem (e.g., Mikhail), communicate their
concerns back to those of us bozos, like myself, who are unschooled
in these matters? In order to defeat a popularizer at his own game,
you have to talk "popular-ese" yourself.
As it is, with statements like the following, you’re losing me, and
I am left only with Lakoff making any kind of sense…
[quoted without attribution (because I don't know who said it)]:
>No. The "fact" is true *only* for purely extensional Tarski-style
>model-theoretic semantics, which makes no effort to axiomatize the
>fixing of reference, such as might be accomplished by syntactic
>metalinguistic representations of Fregean senses.
I’m sure this is meaningful to those who know all the words and refer-
ences, but to those of us for whom Lakoff is one of the few people
that can write in a way that even comes close to explaining these
concepts, this is way over our heads.
Speak English? Is that too much to ask? Please recall that this
thread originated on rec.arts.books–hangout of lay-people, common
folk, and other jargon-ignorant types.
–Fiona Webster
In article <1ti3bdINN…@uwm.edu>, ma…@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:
> Lakoff makes reference to the fact that no attempt to impose an axiomatic
> basis on natural language semantics will succeed in specifying a unique model.
> That means, in particular, there exists a consistent interpretation of
> the words comprising The Lord of the Rings that (a) respects whatever semantic
> contraints you postulate for the words in the English language and the contexts
> they may occur in, and (b) bears no resemblance to the story.
> This is not a trivial result.
In fact, it is sufficiently non-trivial that I, for one, fail to see
how you obtained it from the alleged starting point.
Assume that it is indeed a fact (c) "that no attempt to impose an
axiomatic basis on natural language semantics will succeed in
specifying a unique model." Such a fact says nothing about how much
residual ambiguity is required in a model. As an example, consider
the (in)famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which (roughly) says
that it is impossible to know both the position and momentum of a
particle with complete accuracy. This crude, non-mathematical
statement of the principle does *not* imply that we cannot know
anything about either position or momentum. The real principle places
limits on how closely we can know one of those values given a certain
accuracy in our measurement of the other, but it does allow for
arbitrary precision in either one or the other and, on the macroscopic
level, it allows for pretty good accuracy in both position and
momentum of macroscopic objects. It strikes me that a similar
interpretation could be maintained for (c), in which case, a certain
amount of ambiguity in the model might be unavoidable, but this does
not obviously license the conclusion that a consistent interpretation
is available that "bears no resemblance to the story." I would want
to see a *constructive* proof for that before I would be inclined to
believe it. At the very least you would have to show that Lakoff’s
(c) allows some kind of conclusion to be drawn about how much
ambiguity is to be expected among models. As I read it, (c) appears
consistent with the proposition that the non-uniqeness of the models
may (at least under appropriate circumstances) be arbitrarily small,
i.e., that the available models may converge toward a set that can be
made quite limited, for example, by adding additional context. If
that sort of interpretation is even remotely sensible, then a large
and complex text like _The Lord of the Rings_ may be exactly the sort
of thing that would not allow for arbitrary consistent alternative
interpretations that bear "no resemblance to the story."
–
Paul Neubauer 00prneuba…@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu 00prneuba…@bsuvax1.BITNET
00prneuba…@bsu-ucs.UUCP neuba…@bsu-cs.UUCP
In article <C7F4qv….@grebyn.com>
f…@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>The cross-posting of this thread to all (!) of sci.philosophy.tech,
>sci.logic, and sci.lang is disturbing to me. Combined with what I
>find to be a difficulty in understanding what the experts (I appreciate
>all of y’all’s responses, but I wish you could write to your audience!)
>have to say…this cross-posting puts further enlightenment on the
>subject of Lakoff, basically out of reach for me.
The experts, by definition, always write to their intended audience.
(You might profit from recalling Kant’s famous justification for not
writing the exquisitely turgid first Critique in the limpid language
of his popular essays.) I further note that, exception made for the
adjective "Tarskian", used simply to denote the kind of model theory
allegedly analyzed by Lakoff, *all* of the special terms used in the
subsequent discussion, should be already familiar to the careful
reader of _WFaDT_.
>Why does this have to happen? If Lakoff’s popularizations of lin-
>guistic theory are such a problem, then why should not those who under-
>stand the nature of that problem (e.g., Mikhail), communicate their
>concerns back to those of us bozos, like myself, who are unschooled
>in these matters? In order to defeat a popularizer at his own game,
>you have to talk "popular-ese" yourself.
As far as I am able to ascertain, all of Lakoff’s books are written
with the standard scholarly pretense; accordingly, I see no need to
address them in anything other than scholarly idiom.
>As it is, with statements like the following, you’re losing me, and
>I am left only with Lakoff making any kind of sense…
>[quoted without attribution (because I don't know who said it)]:
>>No. The "fact" is true *only* for purely extensional Tarski-style
>>model-theoretic semantics, which makes no effort to axiomatize the
>>fixing of reference, such as might be accomplished by syntactic
>>metalinguistic representations of Fregean senses.
>I’m sure this is meaningful to those who know all the words and refer-
>ences, but to those of us for whom Lakoff is one of the few people
>that can write in a way that even comes close to explaining these
>concepts, this is way over our heads.
To belabor the point, if you have difficulties understanding the above
paragraph, you have not understood Lakoff’s populist argument, either.
>Speak English? Is that too much to ask? Please recall that this
>thread originated on rec.arts.books–hangout of lay-people, common
>folk, and other jargon-ignorant types.
How presumptuous of you to claim the status of prescriptive linguistic
authority. I may not be a native speaker of this language, but I
assure you that I know perfectly well, what I speak, when I speak it.
> –Fiona Webster
cordially,
mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l’esprit des hommes."
zel…@husc7.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:
>f…@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:
>>>No. The "fact" is true *only* for purely extensional Tarski-style
>>>model-theoretic semantics, which makes no effort to axiomatize the
>>>fixing of reference, such as might be accomplished by syntactic
>>>metalinguistic representations of Fregean senses.
>>Speak English? Is that too much to ask? Please recall that this
>>thread originated on rec.arts.books–hangout of lay-people, common
>>folk, and other jargon-ignorant types.
>How presumptuous of you to claim the status of prescriptive linguistic
>authority.
Indeed. Though I have not read Tarski et. al., I find that the above paragraph
makes plenty of sense.
>I may not be a native speaker of this language, but I
>assure you that I know perfectly well, what I speak, when I speak it.
Fiona’s problem is perhaps a symptom of one who has only ever dealt with
one language — the childsplay they learnt early on.
>> –Fiona Webster
>cordially,
>mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu
>"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l’esprit des hommes."
jw
In article <1993May21.134753.8…@psych.toronto.edu> chri…@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1ti3bdINN…@uwm.edu> ma…@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark) writes:
>>Lakoff makes reference to the fact that no attempt to impose an axiomatic
>>basis on natural language semantics will succeed in specifying a unique
>>model. That means, in particular, there exists a consistent interpretation
>>of the words comprising The Lord of the Rings that (a) respects whatever
>>semantic contraints you postulate for the words in the English language
>>and the contexts they may occur in, and (b) bears no resemblance to the
>>story.
Do you really mean _semantic_ constraints?
>>This is not a trivial result.
>But surely it is not true, or you are not reading what I’m writing.
Why? That there’s a nonstandard interpretation doesn’t mean he’s
using it.
Readers in rec.arts.books should not despair. There are a number of
readable, even entertaining, works other than Lakoff’s Women, Fire, etc.
Hilary Putnam’s book _Reason, Truth, and History_ and the following
papers should all be reasonably accessible.
* "Models and reality" in the 3rd volume of his collected papers.
* "Model theory and the `factuality’ of semantics" in
Alexander George (ed) _Reflections on Chomsky_.
RTH is probably of more general interest.
BTW, despite what Mikhail Zeleny’s said in recent postings in this
thread, he can be quite helpful on occasion. It was MZ who pointed
me to the paper in _Reflections on Chomsky_.
– jd
In article <8…@skye.ed.ac.uk>
j…@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes:
>Readers in rec.arts.books should not despair. There are a number of
>readable, even entertaining, works other than Lakoff’s Women, Fire, etc.
No question about it, Jeff. My personal fave is Huizinga’s _The
Waning of the Middle Ages_.
>Hilary Putnam’s book _Reason, Truth, and History_ and the following
>papers should all be reasonably accessible.
> * "Models and reality" in the 3rd volume of his collected papers.
> * "Model theory and the `factuality’ of semantics" in
> Alexander George (ed) _Reflections on Chomsky_.
Unlike the book, the papers are clearly aimed at the specialist.
>RTH is probably of more general interest.
Yes. Which is to say, it contains a lot more sweeping overgeneralizations.
>BTW, despite what Mikhail Zeleny’s said in recent postings in this
>thread, he can be quite helpful on occasion. It was MZ who pointed
>me to the paper in _Reflections on Chomsky_.
If you wish to defend "internal realism", whatever that might be, you
would have to do better than that. Putnam is quite willing to admit,
in conversation, that his arguments in the cited sources, achieve no
more than a *reductio ad absurdum* of a *particular* approach to
realist semantics. One of these days, I hope to see him say that in
print. Needless to say, I have my own approach, which is unaffected
by the extant criticism, as distinct from unsupported sneers regarding
"magical powers of the mind". Concerning the latter, they certainly
sound funny coming from an admitted non-physicalist.
>– jd
cordially,
mikhail zel…@husc.harvard.edu
"Le cul des femmes est monotone comme l’esprit des hommes."