A Semiotic Reconstruction of Ryle's Critique of Cartesianism 9783110882506, 9783110141566

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B. Narahari Rao A Semiotic Reconstruction of Ryle's Critique of Cartesianism

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Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie Herausgegeben von Jürgen Mittelstraß, Günther Patzig, Wolfgang Wieland

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Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1994

A Semiotic Reconstruction of Kyle's Critique of Cartesianism by

B. Narahari Rao

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York 1994

Gedruckt mit Unterstützung der Universität des Saarlandes © Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier, das die US-ANSI-Norm über Haltbarkeit erfüllt.

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Rao, B. Narahari, 1946A semiotic reconstruction of Kyle's critique of Cartesianism / by B. Narahari Rao. p. cm. — (Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie ; Bd. 38) Revision of the author's thesis, Universität des Saarlandes, 1991. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 3-11-014156-6 (alk. paper) 1. Ryle, Gilbert, 1900 — 1976 — Contributions in criticism of Cartesianism. 2. Philosophy of mind. 3. Descartes, Rene, 1596 — 1650. 4. Philosophy, Modern. 5. Semiotics. I. Title. II. Series. B23.Q45 Bd. 38 [B1649.R964] 100s-dc20 [192] 94-31008 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek —

CIP-Hinheitsaufnahme

Rao, Bairady Narahari: A semiotic reconstruction of Ryle's critique of Cartesianism / by B. Narahari Rao. — Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1994 (Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie ; Bd. 38) Zugl.: Saarbrücken, Univ., Diss., 1991 ISBN 3-11-014156-6 NE: GT

© Copyright 1994 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-10785 Berlin Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Binspcicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany Druck: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin Buchbinderische Verarbeitung: Lüderitz & Bauer-GmbH, Berlin

Dedication

To my late father Krishnayya as a token of gratitude for his understanding for things he could not understand, and for his forgiving me my youthful impieties against him, as well as all that was dear to him. Let this work be understood as an effort to vindicate his way of life - one that is imbued with variable rituals but not tainted by any faith or belief;

and

to my mother Vagdevi whose practice of asserting and making her judgements prevail by quotation, narration and invention of stories nurtured my appetite for things beyond my reach.

Preface This book is a slightly modified version of the dissertation submitted to the Philosophische Fakultät of the Universität des Saarlandes in 1991. For an appreciation of the wider significance of the thesis of the book the following brief note - something of a biographical kind - may perhaps be of help. I came to Germany with a wish to study theories concerning culture but with only a vague idea about the field. Having overcome the initial difficulties of all sorts - both academic and non-academic -1 settled to working on Ryle's distinction between 'knowing-how' and 'knowing-that' on the suggestion of Prof. Dr. Kuno Lorenz. Though it might be difficult for the reader to discern, underlying what I have made out of Ryle are some of my own concerns bugging me from my political-activist days back in India in the seventies. One of them is the connection between what is pejoratively called 'tradition' and one's way of life. It is a common cliche about Indian society - both among its supposed admirers and detractors - that it is 'tradition bound'. I am of the opinion that this characterization is false except in a trivial sense in which any society is traditional. But, be that as it may, such wide-spread use of a cliche can stimulate a question. To anyone having some acquaintance with an Indian milieu, it should become evident that if an ordinary person living in India is 'traditional', it cannot be in the sense that he or she holds beliefs that the European travellers' tales and the scholarly disquisitions over the last three centuries have concocted under the title 'Hindu faith'. Explanations of ways of life in terms of beliefs - whether exotic or familiar - is one of the targets of my attack. Probably such targets are not explicit in this work. Nor perhaps can one readily identify the connection to theory concerning culture. Such explicit discussions are for the future. But I have to thank Kuno Lorenz for the very fruitful suggestion he made of a topic to peg on my concerns and philosophical broodings. In addition to academic indebtedness - which is considerable - this book owes to Prof. Lorenz as well as to Dr. Dietfried Gerhardus, for their help of a nature that can hardly be acknowledged adequately in terms of the usual scholarly apparatus of foot-notes. I have also received such a help from many others, especially from Maly Gerhardus, Dr. Silke Kledzik, Prof. Annely Rothkegel, Prof. Gerhard Heinzmann and Angela Sträub.

viii

Preface

I am also indebted to Prof. Srinivasa Rao of Bangalore University, India, Dr. Kapil Raj of Universite de Lille III, France, and Cheryl Rahman, Saarbrücken, for their help in improving the language and style of the text. It goes without saying that responsibility for the still remaining defects is mine. The Freunde der Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken and the Universität des Saarlandes have given financial support to make this publication possible. To them as well as to the editors of the "Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie" my thanks are due. Saarbrücken, May 1994

B.N.R.

Contents Preface Abbreviations used

vii xiii Part I

Concepts as objects

0 0.1 0.2 0.3

Introduction: the Propositional Model of Knowledge Science as a Context-invariant System of Propositions The Nature of Historical Reference of the Term 'Cartesianism' . . Plan of the Book

1 2 4 5

1 1.0 1.1

Developing a Heuristic Device: Object Approach' 'Making Things Understandable' Acquaintance with Objects as a Model for Knowledge Explication

8 8

2 Enquiry into the "Rational Animal" 2.1 Ryle's Account of His Concerns 2.1.1 Inter-theory Questions and the Skill to Acquaint with the World Reflectively 2.1.2 Theoretical Thinking and the Analogy of Games 2.2 'Philosophy' and the Notion of 'Intellect' 2.2.1 'Theory of Mind' 2.2.2 CM's Relation to the Philosophical Tradition 2.3 What is 'Cartesianism'? 2.3.1 Confusing Logical with Phenomenological Questions and Action-Queries with Causal-Queries 2.3.2 'Psychologism': Thought' as Concatenation of Elements .. 2.3.3 'Platonism': 'Meanings' as a Realm of Entities 2.3.4 'Intellectualist Doctrine', 'Inner Perception' and the Doctrine of 'Accusatives' 2.4 Philosophy of Mind, Category Mistake and'Meta-Philosophy' .. 2.4.1 'Meta-Philosophy' and Theory of Meaning 2.5 Strategic and Paradigmatic Nature of the Theme of 'Concept of Mind'

8 15 15 16 19 24 26 27 29 30 33 37 39 41 44 46

χ

3 3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.3 3.3.1 3.4 3.4.1 3.5 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3 3.5.4

Contents

Science and Method: the Genesis and Structure of Historical Cartesianism Demarcating Knowledge from Opinion Method of Teaching vs. Method of Discovery Aristotle's Order of Knowledge'and Order of Nature' Dialectical Deduction Search for an Alternative to Dialectical Deduction Aristotle and the Search for a Context-Invariant Knowledge The 'Intellect1: Theoria' vs. 'Knowledge is Power' A Sketch of the Aristotelian System Nature and Artefacts, Episteme and Techne Man, 'the Maker' as the Source of Context-Invariance: 'Natural Reason' God as the Artificer and Nature as the Artefact Introspectively Observable'Internal Motion' Knowing 'Natures' to Knowing 'Ideas Thinking Substance' and a State of Error-free Access to Entities Part II

4 4.1 4.1.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.4

69 69 74 76 80

Speech and Reflection

4.5.3 4.5.4

Speech and Language Speech Contrastive and Definitional Uses of Technical Terms Speech as a Skill vs. Language as an Object The 'Logical Grammar1 Ideas' and 'Meanings' vs. 'Use of a Word' Generative and Constitutive Rule The Linguist's Conception of Rule: the Notion of Acceptability 'Usage' and 'Utility' Parasitic on 'Use' Ryle's Action Theoretical Approach Knowing How vs. Empirical Action-Theoretical Approaches Object-Description vs. Object-Construction A Statement of Katz-Fodor'Critique of OLP' Ordinary Language", 'Scientific Language', and 'Natural Language' How to Understand the Task of Linguistic Analysis Nomological and Heuristic Theories

5 5.1 5.2

Thinkingly Doing Something Schema vs. Actualisation and Doing vs. Happening Reflective Exploration

4.3 4.3.1 4.4 4.5 4.5.1 4.5.2

..

49 50 55 55 56 60 61 62 63 66

89 91 93 96 97 98 100

..

102 103 105 107 110 112 114 116 118 125 125 127

Contents

5.2.1 Explication of Reflection 5.3 Reflective Exercise of Speech and Implication Thread 5.4 Validating a Theory vs. Making a Theory Understandable Theory of Abstract Questions, Categories and 'Logical Geography1 6.1 Concrete and Abstract Questions 6.2 The Programme of Identifying Categories 6.3 What is it that is Identified as Belonging to a Category or Type? 6.4 Tasks for a Theory of Categories 6.5 Identification of Mistakes in the Traditional Theories of Categories 6.5.1 Alphabetical View of Factors 6.5.2 Assuming Two Kinds of Facts 6.6 Finite Number of Categories and the Idea of Construction 6.7 From Identifying Categories to Identifying Category-Mistakes 6.8 Arguments to Prove vs. Arguments to Make Things Understandable

xi

..

128 132 133

6

Bibliography Subject Index Name Index

135 135 138 139 140

..

141 141 143 145 151 153 154 160 165

Abbreviations used (i) for Ryle's works CM

The Concept of Mind Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1970. T On Thinking, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1982. CPI Collected Papers Vol. I. CPU Collected Papers Vol. II. Hutchinson & Co Ltd, London, 1971. D Dilemmas, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983. RP Introduction to Revolution in Philosophy, Ayer A.J. et al, Macmillan, London, 1967. C Conversations with Bryan Magee in: Bryan Magee Modern British Philosophy, Paladin books, Herts (England), 1971. (ii) for Aristotle's works Aristotle Reader Aristotle, A New Aristotle Reader, ed. by J.L. Ackrill, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987. Categories Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione,.Tr. with notes and glossary by J.L. Ackrill, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985. Post. Analytics Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, Tr. with notes by J. Barnes, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985. De Anima Aristotle's De Anima, books, II, III, Tr. with introduction and notes by D.W.Hamlyn, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968. (Hi) for the works of Hobbes EW The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by Sir W. Molesworth, Vol. 1, London 1839, repr. Aalen, 1962. LEV Leviathan, 1651, repr. Collins, The Fontana Library, 1969. (iv) for the works of Descartes HR The Philosophical Works of Descartes,.Tr. by E.S. Haldane & G.R.T. Ross, Vol. I & II, Cambridge University Press, London, 1967. CSM Descartes. Selected Philosophical Writings, Tr. by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988. BC Descartes. Discourse on Method and the Meditations, F.E. Sutcliffe, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1968. (v) for the works of Locke Human Understanding : Locke, J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by P.H. Nidditch, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975.

Part I

Concepts as objects

0. Introduction: the Propositional Model of Knowledge "Philosophers have not done justice to the distinction which is quite familiar to all of us between knowing that something is the case and knowing how to do things. In their theories of knowledge they concentrate on the discovery of truths or facts, and they either ignore the discovery of ways and methods of doing things or else they try to reduce it to the discovery of facts. They assume that intelligence equates with the contemplation of propositions and is exhausted in this contemplation. I want to turn the tables and to prove that knowledge-how cannot be defined in terms of knowledge-that and further, that knowledge-how is a concept logically prior to the concept of knowledge-that. ..."'

The purpose of this book is to draw out the full significance of this remark. It can be seen as an attempt to show what it is to take 'knowing how' to be logically prior to 'knowing that' in theories of knowledge. The lead question in terms of which this will be done is: What kind of representation is involved in (philosophical) reflection? I will argue that since the 17th century a model of knowledge that takes 'knowing that' as logically prior to 'knowing how1 has been dominant; this model fails during attempts at thematising the nature of representation involved in reflection. The model in question will be termed 'prepositional model' and the array of questions and arguments concerning philosophical reflection within this model as 'Cartesianism'. Both the lead question and the argument I elaborate are essentially a reformulation of the question and answer Ryle pursued throughout his life-time. Therefore another way of describing the proposed venture would be that it purports to reconstruct G.Ryle's critique of Cartesianism. It is the contention of this work that in order to adequately thematise the nature of representation in reflection, one has to distinguish the question (i) when - i.e. under what conditions - is something a representation? from the question (ii) when - i.e. under what conditions - is something a true representation? In Cartesianism question (i) is confused with and shadowed by question (ii), and this shadowing is closely related to the domination of Cartesian thinking by a particular conception of science.

1 CPU 215.

2

Prepositional model of knowledge

0.1 Science as a Context-invariant System of Propositions We find the essence of this conception of science stated in an apparently insignificant contrast drawn by Descartes in his first work, Rules for the direction of our native intelligence. In enunciating the first rule in this work, Descartes attacks the assumption that the different disciplines, because they have different objects as their domain, also have different methods. He remarks that this assumption arises because scientific knowledge is thought to be analogous to practical arts; but in fact, he suggests, that there is a crucial difference: whereas the former is completely intellectual in nature, the latter depends on bodily disposition and habituation. Because of its rootedness in bodily habits, acquaintance with one practical art hinders proficiency in another2. In contrast, (scientific) knowledge is such that learning about one object domain not only does not hinder learning about another object-domain, but rather facilitates such learning. In the course of these remarks Descartes makes use of the metaphor of light to assert that there is a uniformity in the relation of 'reason' to its Objects'. This is a crucial notion. To discern what it means one has to look at another, apparently unconnected suggestion made by him in his Principles of Philosophy: "The seeker after truth must, once in the course of his life, doubt every thing as far as possible."

But, "This doubt should not meanwhile be applied to ordinary life. .. This doubt, while it continues, should be kept in check and employed solely in connection with the contemplation of the truth. As far as ordinary life is concerned, the chance for action would frequently pass us by if we waited until we could free ourselves from our doubts, and so we are often compelled to accept what is merely probable. From time to time we may even have to make a choice between two alternatives, even though it is not apparent that one of the two is more probable than the other."3

In order to practise the doubt recommended in this passage, in Meditations, a method of setting the commonly accepted opinions in opposition to each other is called into assistance4. This procedure is meant as a route to arrive at a proposition that can be doubted only at the expense of producing a self2 HR, vol.1, p. 1-2. The source of this contrast appears to be Aristotle; Cf.: ".. sense is not capable of perceiving when the object of perception is too intense, e.g. it cannot perceive sound after loud sounds, nor see or smell after strong colours or smells. But when the intellect thinks something especially fit for thought, it thinks inferior things not less but rather more. For the faculty of senseperception is not independent of the body, whereas the intellect is distinct." De Anima, 429 a 29 ( p. 57-8). 3 Cf. CSM. p. 160. 4 See Meditation one.

Science as a context-invariant system

3

contradiction. This non-contradictable proposition is expected to provide the first premise for a system of truths comprising every domain of study. This whole project, it has to be noticed, depends crucially on Opinion' and 'truth' understood in a particular way. In the passage quoted, they are related to action in such a way that actions may be consequences of them, but they themselves are not to be made sense of in terms of the action-consequences: one has to be able to specify 'truth' and Opinion' independent of and prior to the practical context in which they may occur. Thus, the knowledge/opinion contrast is sundered from any particular sphere of activity, and made into a contrast within an independent and uniform sphere of action - what has since come to be known as 'cognitive action' or 'mental action1. 'Idea' is the term used in the 17th century to constitute this uniformity of mental action. More recently the terms 'proposition' and 'representation' (used differently from the usage in this dissertation) have assumed that role within a cognitivist model of mind. This assumption that 'truths' are of one uniform variety and can be specified without reference to the practical context in which the assertions are made is the source of Descartes' search for a general method to demarcate 'knowledge' from mere Opinion1 and to exclude false propositions from one's beliefs5. Today this has become something of a shared assumption of the commonsense understanding of science. Science is assumed to differ from practical arts such as driving or cooking in that it is taken to be knowledge because of its being true (or highly probable) information. True' and 'false' are understood here in a way that is strictly distinguished from the contrast 'useful1 and 'useless'. Further, science is associated with enquiry and enquiry with discovery. Practical arts by contrast are skills, and improving or developing skills is a matter of probing alternative or better ways of doing things which, when successful, result in inventions. These contrasts - information versus skill and discovery versus invention - constitute the backbone of Cartesianism: knowledge is a set of true propositions about an object domain, and scientific activity is directed towards acquiring new knowledge that is expressible as propositions true of that domain. If science understood in this way is taken as the paradigm of representation, it is easy to confuse question (i) with question (ii): A It is important to notice that 'method' is understood here in a peculiar sense quite different from what we understand by it in common-sense parlance. In the common-sense understanding method is something that ensures a definitive performance, but does not necessarily ensure that if we follow it we are protected from committing mistakes all the time. But the 17th century conception of 'the search for method' was in fact a search for a criterion such that it excludes all instances of mistaken beliefs and ensures that only the true beliefs remain. That is, the method is to be identified as the right one in terms of the truths it can deliver. A method that delivers sometimes unacceptable results, i.e. false propositions, has to be identified as a wrong one. Thus learning a method becomes no more a case of improving by practice and reflection, but rather a matter of one go, i.e. it is a matter of discovering a specific criterion or specific mechanical steps.

4

Prepositional model of knowledge

representation, to be successful, has to be a true one; a false representation is not at all a representation in a real sense. This model cannot but fail in thematising the representation in reflection. For, whatever else it is, reflection certainly involves considering possible representations, and therefore 'representation1 has to be given sense independent of the question of whether that representation is true or false. 0.2 The Nature of Historical Reference of the Term 'Cartesianism' The key term above is 'Cartesianism'. It is pertinent to ask whether, and what kind of, historical reference this term involves. In connection with Ryle's use of 'Cartesian mistake' it is often alleged that he does not identify precisely the historical targets6; that he attributes to the thinkers of other ages an interest in the issues that he is concerned with and represents them as protagonists of the theories about those issues that are supposed to be committing the category mistakes. It will be shown later that this complaint misses the point of Ryle's style of philosophising7. Be that as it may, it is necessary to clarify the nature of one's reference to the history of philosophy. For this purpose one may distinguish between historical-empirical and philosophical-systematic study of the history of philosophy. In identifying a certain philosophical tendency in a thinker or an epoch, one is confronted with innumerable texts that can be cited as evidence for another reading. A study in the history of philosophy has the task of weighing the evidence for one reading against another. Such a study is an historical empirical one. In contrast to this, a philosophical study of the history of philosophy can be considered as setting for oneself the task of thrashing out the models governing the thinking - a 'category habit' as Ryle would put 8 - that can give rise to a certain array of arguments and a line of thinking. Like every habit, category-habits too are not consciously worked-out strategies, and therefore not necessarily followed consistently throughout one's thinking about some question. Rather, they are habits of thinking fostered by assumptions that are accepted as trivially or evidently true, and therefore thought of as not requiring extra scrutiny. They involve models taken as paradigms for any theorisation. To bring to light such category-habits is different from an historical empirical study. For category habits first need to be identified, and this requires the construction of a model that captures the core of it adequately. The archaeological metaphor 'excavation' is often used in referring to them9. But this metaphor has to be 6 See Hampshire S, The Critical Review of the Concept of Mind in: Wood O.P. and Pitcher G. (1970) p. 17.44, especially p. 20. 7 See Chapter 5, Part II. 8 CM 10 9 This is the metaphor introduced by R.G. Collingwood to specify the nature of the philosophical tasks Cf. his^w Essay on Metaphysics, Oxford, 1940.

Plan of the book

5

taken with caution: it should not be taken to mean a mere uncovering of a framework waiting to be discovered. The construction of a framework that explains why certain questions and lines of arguments were pursued earnestly is already a move in weakening the category-habit of taking those questions and arguments at face value. Ryle suggests that philosophical discovery, unlike scientific ones, is not something expressible as a true proposition, but something pertaining to the line of arguments themselves. What this means is explicated elsewhere10. But in accordance with this, to identify a category-habit is to identify a certain line of thinking by showing the structure of connections in that line of thinking. This is a constructive task, a task of constructing a model that can circumscribe a possible mode of thinking - or, in Ryle's terms, a category underlying a field of discourse. The historical reference of the present book is of the second variety. 0.3 Plan of the Book The theme of this work, the nature of representation in (philosophical) reflection, is in essence the focus of meta-philosophical discussions in analytical philosophy, i.e. of the discussions on the so-called conceptual enquiry. Therefore we can handle our problem by focusing on the way enquiry into concepts is thought of. 'Concept1 is the term generally used to refer to the means with which we think, i.e. the means with which we represent the world around us. If we conceive philosophy as concerned with reflecting on our habituated ways of thinking, then philosophy is concerned with the way the concepts are used, i.e. the way we represent the world. In fact, this idiom, 'the way the concepts are used' is highly imprecise, unless we assume a certain conception of 'concepts'. However, it is sufficient for the purpose of indicating the plan of this book: my concern is with enquiry into concepts in contrast with enquiry into objects; that is, the way we can represent concepts in contrast to the way we can represent objects. The main contention of this work can be formulated as follows: in Cartesianism enquiry into concepts is thought of as analogous to enquiry into objects; but to do so is a mistake. Correspondingly this book is divided into two parts. In part I an exposition as well as a diagnosis is given of the tendency or 'category habit' of handling enquiry into concepts as if it is an enquiry into an object-domain. Part II elucidates an alternative way of prosecuting the enquiry into concepts and shows its implications. Both parts together constitute a reconstruction of Ryle's critique of Cartesianism as well as his arguments as to what philosophy is. Part I and part II in their turn are each divided into three chapters. 10

See Chapter 6

6

Prepositional model of knowledge

Chapter 1 develops a model of knowledge based on a focus on perception from the notions familiar to us in our day-to-day orientation. This model is constructed in order to serve as a heuristic device in our elaboration and characterisation of Cartesianism. Chapter 2 weaves together different concerns that occupied Ryle into an intellectual map. The purpose is to indicate the possible niche - both in the overall scheme of his thinking and in the terrain of the inherited tradition - of the different questions Ryle handles. This chapter also gives an elucidation of the term 'Cartesianism' as used by him. The aim is to provide by way of an exegesis of Ryle's texts a systematic outline of 'Cartesianism' as a philosophical position to be polemicised against. In chapter 3, a historical sketch contrasting the notions of 'philosophy' (indistinguishable from 'science') and 'method' in Aristotle and the modern period is undertaken. The aim is twofold: first, to give a rough account of the logical genesis of Cartesianism by way of an exegesis of a few texts of Aristotle, Hobbes and Descartes. Secondly, through accomplishing the first task, to provide the justification for the historical claims made in chapter 2. Part II concerns itself with outlining an alternative to the propositional model of knowledge as well as the assumption that enquiry into concepts is analogous to enquiry into objects. This means, in effect, working out the implications of assuming that knowing-how is logically prior to knowing-that. Another way of putting it is to say that action-competence is prior to the competence of describing that competence; 'reflection' is a notion meant to refer to the activity in between these two levels of competence, i.e., in between the ability to do something and the ability to describe that doing. With regard to reflection two positions are identified, called here 'foundationalist' and 'constructionist'. The former is shown to involve two-fold reductions, reducing reflection to what will be termed as Object-construction' and that in turn to object-description. Further, this will be shown to involve the assumption of some primitive objects - either arbitrarily chosen or ontologically primary from which other objects are constructed. The contructionist approach, on the other hand, does not accept that object-construction can be reduced to objectdescription, and also assumes object-construction to be only one form of reflection. Ryle is identified as 'constructionist' and his critics, exemplified by Katz and Fodor, as 'foundationalists'. On the whole, this part of the thesis starts with a distinction between object-describing and object-constitutive speedh and essentially concentrates on an elucidation and elaboration of the notion Object-constitutive speech'. Chapter 4 introduces the notion of 'speech' by contrasting it with the notion of 'language'. Thereby it also shows the difference between the 'linguistic concerns' of a philosopher of the Ordinary Language' persuasion - a description often applied to Ryle -, and that of a linguist. It argues that prior to conceiving investigation into language as an object, one requires to assume

Plan of the book

7

a level of acquaintance with a language as a skill or know-how. In doing this, a prevalent conception of linguistic philosophy, that it is parasitic on the concerns of linguists, is shown to depend on foundationalist premises, and it is also shown that some criticisms levelled at Ryle depend on such premises. Chapter 5 constructs a conceptual apparatus to elucidate the conception of philosophy maintained here. It introduces a pair of distinctions, 'schema' vs. 'actualisation' and 'doing' vs. 'suffering' or 'happening', in order to explicate the notion of reflection. These distinctions are used to elucidate the notion of philosophy, or enquiry into concepts. The main task of this chapter is to explicate the notion of 'implication thread' as the 'happening' or 'suffering' aspect of our speech. Then, with the help of this notion, in chapter 6 the arguments to prove something (i.e. arguments in empirical enquiry) are distinguished from, and contrasted with, the arguments to make something understandable (i.e., arguments in conceptual enquiry or philosophy.) It also connects Ryle's concern with (Western) philosophic tradition by taking up the mistakes in the tradition in conceiving the tasks of theories of categories. Mainly three kinds of mistakes are identified, one traceable to Aristotle, another to Kant, and the third in both of them. In accomplishing this, again, a twofold purpose is aimed at: firstly, to lay bare the source of certain Cartesian tendencies still prevalent in contemporary analytical philosophy, and secondly, to clarify the meaning and function of 'category' and 'category mistakes'. Thereby, the nature of cognitive gain in reflection and philosophy also gets clarified.

1. Developing a Heuristic Device: Object Approach1 1.0 'Making Things Understandable' This work proposes the thesis that philosophy is an activity wherein the explication of a thesis and the argument for it are not separable. Let me call such an activity as that of 'making things understandable'. The interpretation, i.e. the task of making a text or an author understandable has the analogous feature of the explication of the suggested interpretation and the argument for it being not separable. Since this is proposed as a philosophical thesis, arguing for this stance and making this stance understandable (i.e. giving an explication of the thesis) is one and the same thing: one has to find a way of presenting the thesis that exemplifies the thesis, i.e. for the reader the process of coming to understand the thesis must be such that he simultaneously comes to appreciate the insight meant to be conveyed by it. An activity of making things understandable has to begin with some familiar situation, where it can be provisionally assumed that the understanding is not problematic. To work out the thesis that the philosophical tradition is based upon the logical priority of knowing that to that of knowing how, therefore, first a provisional distinction is introduced on the basis of a day-to-day orientation in the world. The elaboration of this distinction is aimed at showing how a philosophical theory can arise from such a day-to-day orientation. Next, this distinction is used as a heuristic device to delineate what the term 'Cartesianism' for Ryle would mean, and how and where the term is applicable to the philosophical tradition. Thus the distinctions that look insignificant in the beginning are shown to be significant in terms of their heuristic value to construct a view of the world, the intellectual tradition and the interpretation of an author. J.I Acquaintance with Objects as a Model for Knowledge Explication A possible way of representing the orientation of our daily life can be: we are familiar and acquainted with a number of objects and know how to deal with them. Let me term the first, 'the acquaintance with objects' and the second 'acquaintance with skills'. We are also likely to say that the objects are acquainted with through perception and the way of dealing with them is learnt

Acquaintance with objects as a model for knowledge explication

9

through different kinds of habituation and/or training. Thus common-sense can be said to assume two kinds of knowledge. It is a legitimate theoretical interest to probe whether one of them is primary in terms of which the other can be recast and understood1. In order to do this, however, this initial distinction has to be developed into models. If we want to elaborate the acquaintance with objects into a model of knowledge, it is inevitable that our perceptual capacity becomes the central focus. Roughly, our common-sense intuition tells us that there are objects of which we take notice in perception. The 'we' here can be replaced by 'persons' or 'agents'. Agents are a special kind of object characterised by some capacities such as perception, thinking, decision etc. Of course, objects are noticed by agents only on certain occasions depending upon their interests, but we are disposed to distinguish perception from the occasions that give rise to it. This common-sense propensity can be built into the perceptual model of knowledge by making a distinction between the 'constitutive' and 'motivational' factors: the role of interests, prejudices and habits in perceiving things is one of occasioning the perception - either goading or hindering the agents to perceive - and not as constituting what perception is. The latter has to be logically demarcated from the former - the motivational factors. With this demarcation, however, the objects attain a logically primary status in a form that is not present in the day-to-day orientation. It is a well recognised fact that we perceive one and the same thing differently in different contexts depending upon our needs, desires and interests. Common sense therefore is not necessarily incompatible with the view that perception is marking out the world in terms of contextually dependent perspectives. But demarcating 'perception1 from 'motivational factors' would mean distinguishing within the perceptual context those factors motivating the agent to perceive and those factors due to the objects themselves that are made accessible to the agent by the perception. Thus arises the assumption that there is a nature to the objects of which perception has to only take notice of. This would also mean differentiating the contextually varying perception from the real perception. The latter is a capacity or mode of acquaintance giving us access to the objects as they are. This would imply that there is an 'undistorted' context impervious to the motivational factors. Let me call this 'the assumption My contention is that, if not the reducibility of acquaintance with skills to that of acquaintance with objects, at least the assumption that the latter is a kind of knowledge different from - and has to be given an account strictly differently from that of - the former, definitely underlies the philosophical tradition. One instance of this supposition is Aristotle's distinction between things 'that cannot be otherwise' and the knowledge of which is of the sort theoria, and things 'that can be otherwise' the knowledge of which is of the form of techne (see the third chapter for details). See also Aristotle's distinction between intellectual knowledge and perceptual knowledge in terms of whether knowledge exercise results in tiredness of the concerned organ or not. Cf. De Anima 429 a 29. This passage is perhaps the source of Descartes' distinction - mentioned earlier - between practical arts that are dependent on the bodily dispositions and intellectual knowledge which is not so dependent.

10

Developing a heuristic device: Object approach'

of a universally accessible context' and the perception which makes available to us the objects located in such a context 'non-semiotic presentation relation' or 'non-semiotic acquaintance relationship to objects'. The term 'non-semiotic' calls for some explanation here. I assume that the signs are the means of selection from the multiple possibilities of a situation, and an object made available through signs is necessarily context-bound. The 'context' in turn is necessarily a pluralist and horizontal notion, i.e., it becomes sensible to speak of a context when it can be distinguished from another context, both of which are such that they do not have a derivative relationship to one another. Thus, talking of a universal context from which other contexts are derivative is not very sensible and it can be made sense of only metaphorically. The usage Objects in universal context' (to be used as a technical term in this dissertation) is in fact another way of saying Objects that do not have contexts' or 'unaffected by contexts'. Such objects cannot be made available through signs. Hence the term 'non-semiotic presentation relation'. Thus from an ordinary idea of perception as a means of access to objects we glide into the assumption that there is a special faculty or relation that puts the agents in empirically diverse situations to the objects in a universal context, i.e. objects as they are2. This opens up a new avenue of intellectual preoccupation: one may raise doubts whether we are really in possession of this capacity, and explore different possibilities of answering such doubts (the supposed sceptical question, to answer which, supposedly, epistemology as an enterprise took birth.) In case one assumes that there is such a capacity, there arises the effort to specify a discipline that corresponds to the development and exercise of this capacity. The method as well as the objects of this discipline could be considered as basic or foundational. Thus, from the notion of perception giving us access to objects, one may come to the assumption that the real nature of objects are made available through a particular intellectual discipline, and all other disciplines are either derivative from or reducible to the objects described by this discipline. This gives rise to the possibility of disputes, such as whether this or that discipline is foundational or not, and whether this or that discipline can be reduced to the other or not.3 My suggestion is that the postulation of a non-semiotic presentation of objects is an unavoidable consequence of assuming the objects given to agents as the model of knowledge. Depending upon whether philosophy is conceived as a positive science or as an under-labourer discipline, i.e. whether as a discipline describing basic objects or as 'analysis', it will be identified with this 'foundational discipline' itself or parasitic on it. Thus, in some accounts, 'Metaphysics' or 'primary philosophy' has the status of foundational discipline, being considered as the science of 'the ultimate objects'. Some schools and philosophers accorded to physics this status and viewed philosophy as parasitic on physics, having the task of construction of the objects of the day-to-day world as well as that of other disciplines from the objects made available through physical theory; or, if the reduction is considered too much of a demand, an analysis of the concepts of other disciplines in such a way that the revelation of their relation to physics becomes a privileged task of Philosophy. Quine's stance is a good example of this latter sort of belief in the foundational status to Physics. See his 'Goodman's ways of world making' in: Quine (1981) p. 98. Of classical authors, Hobbes

Acquaintance with objects as a model for knowledge explication

11

There arises further the question of what connection there is between this notion of a state of acquaintance with objects as they are and the empirically diverse perceptions. The latter can be considered as 'appearances' and the former as 'reality', and within this scaffold one may attempt to delineate the path of genesis of appearances from reality and that of gaining reality from appearances. This can be built into either a learning or investigative theory, making learning or investigation a process either of coming from (day-to-day) 'experience' to the original and pure perception of objects, or of building up the day-to-day objects from such an original basis. One can vary this and conceive two modes of objects, a 'general1 object and another 'particular' object. Accordingly, the non-semiotic presentation relation can be conceived in two modes - that which gives access to the general and that which gives access to the particular. Alternatively, one can either conceive the general object to be primary and the perception of particular to be mediated through the general, or the particular object to be primary and the mode of the formation of the general as a process of abstraction from the particular. In either case one may use the term 'perception1 to refer to the mode of access to the particular and 'thinking' or 'thought' to mode of access to the general. Thus one may speak of 'thought objects' in contrast to 'perceptual objects'4. Then, considered the 'principle' of motion, the basic concept of physics of his time, as foundational principle of all that there is. In the discussion at the end of 19th century and the beginning of this century, of the question of how to establish the 'Geisteswissenschaften', one of the points of discussion was whether cultural sciences are based upon psychology or history. Cf. K.Buhler's discussion of this controversy and his criticism of it in his K. Bühler (1934) chapter 1. Similarly, at least in one version of the Unity of Science movement initiated by the members of the Vienna cirlce, it was conceived that there is a special method successfully adopted by the natural sciences that has to be made the basis in all disciplines. H. Rickert, who wished to distinguish the 'Kulturwissenschaft' from 'Naturwissenschaft' based, not upon the nature of the domains but on the methods followed in investigation, nevertheless speaks of a definition of cultural objects that would help to distinguish between two groups of disciplines. Cf.: " ..wir verstehen darunter (i.e. Kultur) die Gesamtheit der realen Objekte, an denen allgemein anerkannte Werte oder durch sie konstituierte Sinngebilde haften,... Ohne daß wir nähere inhaltliche Bestimmung hinzufügen, sehen wir nun zu, wie dieser Begriff der Kultur uns weiter zur Abgrenzung der zwei Gruppen von Einzelwissenschaften dienen kann " H. Rickert (1986) p. 46 (emphasis mie). That is, in spite of the initial promise to differentiate disciplines in terms of methods, he ends up postulating two kinds of objects on the basis of which the disciplines need to be classified. One may go further and conceive the perception of the empirically investigable world of objects as involving the application by the agent of the genera] as a means of interpretation or identification. In that case, the general is what the agent is acquainted with non-semiotically. This is the classical rationalist approach discernible both in Descartes and Leibniz. Cf. Leibniz's critique of Locke's criticism of innate ideas in: Neue Abhandlungen über den menschlichen Verstand, Leibniz (1971) Bk I; also see the following passage, where Leibniz adds to the definition by Locke that 'idea is the object of thinking' by saying: "Ich gebe es zu, wenn Sie hinzufügen, daß sie ein unmittelbares inneres Objekt ist, und daß dieses Objekt ein Ausdruck der Natur oder der Eigenschaften der Dinge ist. Wäre die Idee die Form des Denkens, so würde sie mit den ihr entsprechenden aktuellen Gedanken entstehen und vergehen; ist sie aber das Objekt des Denkens, so kann sie den Gedanken selbst vorausgehen und nachfolgen. Die äußeren sinnlichen Objekte sind nur mittelbare, weil sie nicht unmittelbar auf die Seele wirken können. .. Man konnte sagen, daß die Seele selbst ihr unmittelbares inneres Objekt ist; aber sie ist dies, sofern sie die Ideen, die sich ihrerseits auf die

12

Developing a heuristic device: Object approach'

depending upon which sphere of object is conceived as primary and made accessible to the agent through the non-semiotic presentation relation, the way of progressing from one to the other can be conceived as progressing from a primary or basic mode to a secondary mode of knowledge. By the logic of the assumption of non-semiotic acquaintance relationship, the basic mode is selfcertifying and the knowledge-character of the secondary mode is secured through some kind of transfer of knowledge certification from the primary mode. Thus we get an argumentative model of knowledge, i.e., knowledge consists of elements that are evident by themselves (ultimate premises) and those whose evidence depends upon those other supposedly self-evident elements.5 Dinge beziehen, enthält. Denn die Seele ist eine kleine Welt, worin die deutlichen Ideen ein Bild Gottes und die Verworrenen ein Bild des Universums sind." ibid., p. 83.(emphasis mine) Instead of speaking of empirical perception as a process of interpretation, one may speak of it as caused by the inter-action between the presented and the means. ' This model is thus susceptible to the ubiquitous use of the metaphor of building to describe knowledge, such as 'sure basis', 'initial foundation' etc. In this connection it is interesting to look at the structure of the arguments in the first meditations in Descartes' work 'Meditations on First Philosophy'. There, in order to arrive at the 'foundational' premise of his system, Descartes applies 'the method of doubt', which in turn means the application of the criterion of non-contradictability to the perceptions (in the sense of differentiations) and judgements we hold to in our ordinary life. He subsumes both perceptions and judgements under the term Opinion', and sets one opinion against another, and one set of opinions (in one sphere of life) to another set (in another sphere). There is a successive expansion of the scope in terms both of the number of opinions encompassed, and the level of their generality. That is, the argument proceeds by showing that the set of opinions considered in a previous stage of the argument has more fundamental premises as its basis than is suspected, so that Opinions' of a lesser level of generality are simultaneously shown to have opinions of a higher level of generality as their premises. For instance, he begins by identifying beliefs based on the delivery of senses and draws attention to the fact that among these there are illusions. Then suggests reasons for singling out, and identifying, a more reliable set amongst such sense-delivered beliefs: 'perceptions' such as one's sitting at the fire side here and now, the suggestion goes, can be considered as certain because they exhibit both immediacy and practical efficacy. In the next step of the argument, against such a set, the set of dream experiences where the criteria of immediacy and practical efficacy applies (if the focus is confined to the sphere of 'experience' - in a sense that covers both dream and waking states), is counter-posed. That is, the criteria of immediacy and practical efficacy is shown to single out a set such that it contains subsets not compatible with each other (the waking experiences, for instance, are not compatible with the dream experiences). To overcome this result, a more encompassing criterion is formulated: the suggestion is put forward that the set of characteristics such as forms of things, which though as perceived in their instantiation, the individual things, might not exist, nevertheless as forms themselves couldn't be illusory, they cannot be thought out of the blue. That is, a set of judgements as to the general characteristics of things is arrived at through the application of the principle of non-contradiction in such a way that particular experiences, though may contradict each other, are said to exemplify certain mutually compatible set of features or forms. This set in its turn is counterposed against a possibility of there being a experience such forms in me through causing of it by an all powerful demon, and so on. In other words, there is a successive expansion of the generality of the judgements and such general judgements are simultaneously shown to be 'foundational' to the judgements or opinions of a lesser level of generality left behind by the application of the method of doubt. A careful consideration of the word 'method', on the one hand, and its use by Descartes, on the other, reveals certain interesting aspects. We can distinguish two different senses: (i) method in the sense of a learning strategy that either improves a certain existing skill or makes available a new skill through

Acquaintance with objects as a model for knowledge explication

13

Knowledge in such a model is defined in terms of the objects, for the objects are conceived as having a 'nature' and knowledge is conceived as an agent taking notice of this. Consequently, one has to conceive perception or thinking - i.e. knowledge-action - in contradistinction to other actions, as actions where the results (i.e. objects of perception or thinking) are preexistent. Or, in order to distinguish the pre-existent object on the one hand and the result of the action on the other, one has to postulate two spheres of reality - the object-world and the world of cognising actions - the result of the latter being the representation-objects; instead of objects in the natural world these representation-objects are conceived as non-semiotically present to the agent. In this model, since knowledge is constituted by the objects given nonsemiotically to the agents, signs are incidental to the acquisition of knowledge. Thus it is evident that knowledge is conceived separately from communication. Giving an account of signs is only a question of how we can embody the already acquired knowledge through some means for the purpose of presenting it to others. This separation of sign-construction from knowledge acquisition makes it possible to conceive signs as objects standing for other objects6. Put differently, signs are conceived as labels for objects - one object is made to stand for another by convention, i.e., by decision. Thus the object approach exhibits a susceptibility for a particular theory of meaning, where in order to elucidate the meaning such notions as 'convention setting', 'decision', 'intention' etc., are called into assistance. Designating these notions as well as the non-semiotic presentation of objects as 'mental action', we can assert that in this model, mental action is both prior to sign-action, and that in terms of which sign-action is accounted for. generalising an already existing learning strategy (or by an analogical transfer of a learning strategy pertaining in one sphere to another); (ii) method in the sense of that which removes the obstacles to the proper exercise of a natural capacity, or to a naturally existing relation to the objects. The objectapproach requires the method in the second sense. This sense, in fact, makes for a transition to still another sense: (iii) 'method1 in the sense of 'criterion of distinction (between true and false)'. The important bridge between the second and third senses is the idea of there is a special faculty that puts one in touch with the objects as they are. For Descartes, such a faculty is 'the perception of the understanding'. More generally, as will be elaborated in the third chapter, the notion of 'natural reason' held by 17th and 18th century philosophers is such a special faculty. " In daily life, however, we not merely perceive things but also talk with others about them. What kind of account of this activity - i.e., of communication - is possible within the model of objects given to agents! Since a level of objects prior to objects differentiated through signs is postulated, signs have to be derivative of the objects given to agents non-semiotically. Thus, in the perspective of this model, communication takes place by virtue of selecting a set of objects which are put in relation to another set about which communication is desired. Put differently, the signs are conceived as labels: one object is made to stand for another by convention. Thus a specific theory of meaning is tied to the object-approach. However, the supposed convention cannot be the traced back to a deliberate coordinated decision; therefore one postulates it to be somehow underlying a practice. So far so good. But the problem is centred around the conception of 'learning' one assumes: often one speaks of the convention underlying a practice as being inferred by the agents. This 'inferring act' is as much difficult to empirically discover as the event of setting a convention. One inevitably turns therefore to a search for a learning mechanism. This is one of the marked characteristics of this approach.

14

Developing a heuristic device: Object approach'

As a result, this model requires to postulate a special sort of object, 'mind' or 'thinking object', as agents; these are objects exhibiting the capacity for mental action. Ryle identifies two features in the tradition from Locke to Bradley, the tradition which he also identifies as 'Cartesianism': a) attempt to define knowledge in terms of accusatives, b) conceiving reflection in the model of perception. Both these features can be shown to stem from the assumption that knowledge is taking notice of objects located in a universally accessible context. In the following chapters this is one of the tasks that will be addressed.

2. Enquiry into the "Rational Animal" A work undertaking to reconstruct Ryle's distinction between 'knowing how' and 'knowing that' has to first justify itself. That is, it has to show that such a reconstruction is not motivated by a mere personal interest in one person's thinking; the question to be answered is: why is Ryle's philosophical accomplishment relevant and important as a philosophical heritage? This chapter seeks to answer this question by attempting to achieve another aim, namely to weave together different conceptions, concerns and questions of Ryle into a unified conspectus - an intellectual map - that indicates both the location of these different constituents in the terrain of Ryle's own thinking as well as that of the philosophical tradition. I will pick out two of his questions as the running thread and discuss their lineage and mutual connection to show that the significance of the questions Ryle tackled was not confined to the context of 20th century philosophy. The questions are: (a) what is philosophy? or in the Rylean way of putting this question, what is it to do philosophy? (b) what is mind - or rather - how to characterise 'intelligence' and 'intellect'? 2.1 Ryle's Account of His Concerns A piece of advice Ryle gives for the study of any thinker is that not only one has to "find the answers to the question, 'What were his intellectual worries?', but before that question and after, the answer to the question, what was his overriding worry?'"1 Applying this advice to the study of Ryle demands that we identify his master question and find out how the varied problems addressed in different essays are inter-related concerns in the service of answering that master question. Ryle himself mentions his overriding worry to be the question, "What constitutes the philosophical problem? and what is the way to solve it?"2, the first question above. How is this question related to the second, and further, to the theory of meaning which is also a continuing

1 2

CPI.ix. 'Autobiographical' in: Wood O.P and Pitcher G. (1 -15), p. 12.

16

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

concern in very many of his essays?3 How to weave these - at least apparently too disparate - concerns into a unified thread? 2.1.1 Inter-theory Questions and the Skill to Acquaint with the World Reflectively First, however, what is the point of the question identified as his overriding intellectual worry? One can find two kinds of elaboration of it by Ryle. First, he often describes the historical circumstances wherein the question arose within the context of the birth of Analytical philosophy in the 20th century.4 The main burden of this story is to show how the distinction between the factual and conceptual investigation came to be drawn and how the accounts offered of the latter were unsatisfactory. This may leave us with the impression ' One essay contributed by Ryle to a volume meant to present the philosophical positions by major thinkers by themselves is even titled "The Theory of Meaning1, cf. Mace C.A. (ed.)(1957), reprinted in: CPU 350-72. Typical for this line of narration of his question is his essay on Wittgenstein, where the purport of the essay is declared as wanting to "show how Wittgenstein transformed and answered what was all the time his master-question, what can philosophers and logicians do and how should they do it?" (CPI 251). There is a graphic description of how this question arose both in England and Vienna: "From the time of Locke to Bradley philosophers had debated their issues as if they were psychological issues. Certainly their problems were, often, genuine philosophical problems, but they discussed them in psychological terms. ..The sorts of 'Mental science' that they talked were sometimes positivistic, sometimes idealistic, according, roughly, as they were more impressed by chemistry than by theology or vice versa. However, fifty years ago philosophers were getting their feet out of these psychological boots. For psychology had now begun to be done in laboratories and clinics, so armchair psychology became suspect. But even more influential was the fact that logical quandaries had recently been exposed at the very roots of pure mathematics. .. Logicians had to work out the logic of mathematics, and they could not base this logic on the findings of any empirical science, especially of so hazy a science as psychology. If logic and philosophy were not psychological enquiries, what were they? During the first twenty years of this century, many philosophers gave another answer to this question, a Platonic answer. Philosophy studies not the workings of minds or, of course, of bodies either; it studies the denizens of a third domain, the domain of abstract, or conceptual entities, of possibilities, essences, timelessly subsisting universals, numbers, truths, falsities, values and meanings. This idea enabled its holders to continue to say that philosophy was the science of something, while denying that it was the science of any ordinary subject-matter; to champion its autonomy as a discipline, while denying that it was just one science among others; .. It was the answer given by Frege and Russell... .. in England the question was this: What are the special virtues which the natural and mathematical sciences lack but logic and philosophy possess, such that these must be invoked when the former find themselves in quandaries? In Vienna the question was this: Given that philosophers cannot decide scientific questions, what are the logical virtues which scientific procedures possess but philosophical procedures lack? The contrast between philosophy and science was drawn in both places. In Vienna, where the autonomy of the sciences was actually challenged, it was drawn in order to extract the positive functions of logic and philosophy. Philosophy was regarded in Vienna as a blood sucking parasite; in England as a medicinal leech" (CPI 250-1). This line of argument is repeated often. Cf. his introductions to RP, CPI and CPU as also his paper Theory of Meaning' in CPU; Also his essays on Russell, Wittgenstein, Austin and his paper 'Phenomenology and concept of Mind' in CPI.

Ryle's account of his concerns

17

that his master question is merely of historical significance as a rejoinder to some historically specific doctrines. But there is a second kind of account that locates the question in terms of a quest for identifying and preserving a necessary and worthwhile aspect of theoretical enquiry from a dominant confusion it is susceptible to. In a tribute paid to Locke, Ryle both articulates the nature of his interest in demarcating the different disciplines and provides his understanding of the nature of a philosophical task. "What ... was Locke's achievement? If I am not mistaken, it was something much greater than is usually allowed him. He was not merely the plain-spoken mouthpiece of the age or the readable epitome of its development; nor was it his task merely to anglicise and popularise the philosophical and scientific concepts and theories of his day. His title does not rest upon his rather frail claim to be the founder of psychology, nor yet upon his two-edged claim to be the founder of modern theories of knowledge Instead I claim for Locke that he did achieve a part of his ambition 'to be underlabourer, in clearing ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge' in that he taught the whole educated world the lesson (which might with profit be conned over in some quarters in our own day) that there are differences in kind, and roughly what these differences are, between mathematics, philosophy, natural science, theology, inspiration, history, and common-sense acquaintanceship with the world around us. In a word, his achievement is that he gave us not a theory of knowledge but a theory of the sciences. So that for which we should render him thanks is ....which, though it does not glitter, still is gold, namely a permanent emancipation from a besetting confusion. He taught us to distinguish the types of our enquiries, and thus made us begin to understand the questions that we ask." 5

Using a phrase in the above quotation we can conceive Ryle's masterquestion to be motivated by a concern to emancipate a specific kind of 'acquaintanceship with the world around us' from besetting confusion. The characteristic he attributes to that 'acquaintanceship' is discernible in the kind of achievements attributed to Locke: first, Locke's accomplishment of distinguishing the types of our enquiries is equated here with providing a theory of sciences, and secondly, what is achieved by providing such a theory is equated with making us begin to understand the questions we ask. Since this achievement is attributed to Locke in his role as a philosopher, we can conclude that in asking the question, 'what constitutes philosophy?' Ryle is interested in salvaging the kind of 'acquaintanceship with the world around us1 that makes us begin to understand the questions we ask. It will become clear in the course of this book that the contrast between 'theory of knowledge' and 'theory of sciences' made use of in the above passage CPI 145-6.

18

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

to applaud Locke embodies a very particular diagnosis of the mistake of the philosophical tradition and a suggestion for its rectification. For the moment, it is enough to point out that both these terms are meant as epithets for different approaches to giving an account of the thinking or thought embodied in the sciences, the former as an epithet for a mistaken view and the latter for a correct understanding of the task involved. Further, the word 'theory' should not be taken here in any strict sense, as it will become clear later that according to Ryle philosophical 'theories' do not have the same features as the scientific theories. An initial elucidation of what is meant by 'theory of sciences' is given in the quoted passage: it is said to make us aware of the fact that "there are differences of kind and what these differences are" between different disciplines. Ryle describes in D how the need for showing these 'differences in kind' between disciplines arises and what the nature of the task is, by drawing attention to a particular variety of questions: those that arise when theories concerning different domains produce an apparent conflict: "Sometimes thinkers are at loggerheads with one another, not because their propositions do conflict, but because their authors fancy that they conflict. They suppose themselves to be giving, at least by indirect implication, rival answers to the same questions, when this is not really the case. They are then talking at crosspurposes with one another". 6 " ..when intellectual positions are at cross purposes (in this manner), the solution of their quarrel cannot come from any further internal corroboration of either position. The kind of thinking which advances biology is not the kind of thinking which settles the claims and counter-claims between biology and physics. These inter-theory questions are not questions internal to those theories. They are not biological or physical questions. They are philosophical questions" 7. It is significant that philosophical questions are characterised on the one hand as inter-theory and inter-disciplinary questions, and on the other as questions arising from talking at cross purposes. That is, 'inter-theory' or 'inter-disciplinary' does not mean here 'questions requiring expertise in more than one discipline'. Rather it means questions arising out of a conjoint use of the concepts appropriate to different theories or disciplines. A highly picturesque metaphor used by him elsewhere brings home this point: ".. Philosopher's problems do not in general, if ever, arise out of troubles about single concepts, .. They arise, rather, as the traffic-policeman's problems arise, when crowds of conceptual vehicles, of different sorts and moving in different directions meet at some conceptual cross-roads. All or a lot of them have to be got under control conjointly. This is why in its early stages, a philosophical dispute 6 7

D. 11 D. 13.

Ryle's account of his concerns

19

strikes scientists and mathematicians as so messy an affair. It is messy, for it is a traffic block - a traffic block which cannot be tidied up by the individual drivers driving their individual cars efficiently." ^

This passage also makes it clear that 'inter-theory questions' are not only not meant to be questions within particular disciplines but also not meant to be questions about the theories and disciplines. The inter-theory questions are said to be resolved by gaining a conjoint control of the use of the concepts and therefore they can be considered as arising because of a lack of such conjoint control over the concepts one uses. That means, these questions and the solutions to them are part of enquiry at an object-level and not arising out of a meta-level interest about object-level questions and answers.9 Further, Ryle makes it clear that to say that the inter-theory questions or conflicts arise out of thinking at cross-purposes is not to say that they are accidental mistakes. On the contrary, such conflicts are unavoidable hazards in the process of formulating complex clusters of issues into problems for enquiry. As such they are immanent to theoretical enterprise: "Passport officials, perhaps, do try to get the answer to one question at a time and their questions are printed out for them on forms and are numbered off in serial order. But a theorist is not confronted by just one question, or even by a list of questions numbered off in serial order. He is faced by a tangle of wriggling, intertwined, slippery questions. Very often he has no clear idea of what his questions are until he is well on the way towards answering them.. He does not know, most of the time, even what is the general pattern of the theory that he is trying to construct, much less what are the precise forms and inter-connections of its ingredient questions. Often .. he hopes and sometimes he is misled by the hope that the general pattern of his still rudimentary theory will be like that of some reputable theory which in another field has already reached completion or is near enough to completion for its logical architecture to be apparent. ... Unlike playing cards, problems and solutions of problems do not have their suits and their denominations printed on their faces. Only late in the game can the thinker know even what have been trumps." 10

2.1.2 Theoretical Thinking and the Analogy of Games The analogy of the game making its appearance in the last lines of the passage just quoted is in fact made use of in D repeatedly and in multifarious ways to elucidate the nature of theoretical thinking. First, thinking, like games, is constituted by rules that regulate the pieces used as instruments and not by these pieces themselves. It is a skill that can be exercised with ° CPU 135 10

This point is important by itself and will be dealt in detail in Part II, chapter 6. D 7-8.

20

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

competence or sloppiness. However, unlike the case of the implements (like cards) used in the game, there is no clear identification mark attached to the linguistic or conceptual tools used in thinking. The main point of this analogy is to assert that thinking is an 'activity1 and not an Occurrence', just some happening that one is subject to. The denial that it is an occurrence is meant to draw attention to the fact that thinking is a learnt way of doing things and thus involves learning. The assertion that thinking is a consortium of learnable or learnt skills is one of the constant refrains in Ryle: "Some practice and often some tuition is a sine qua non of our being able to think out any problems at all, however simple, within certain fields. It is not from lack of quick-wittedness that my Red Indian cannot work out or even be defeated by a chess problem, but because he has not learned the game. Thinking, like fencing and skating, is a consortium of competences and skills. Like them, it has tasks which it may accomplish or may fail to do so. It has room in it, therefore, for high and low degrees of these competences and skills, i.e. of low and high degrees of stupidity and silliness. In our thinking we exercise good, moderate or bad craftsmanship. Thought is not something that just happens to us, like digestion. It is something that we do, and do well or badly, carefully or carelessly, expertly or amateurishly." '' This emphasis that thinking is not something happening to oneself, but a learnt way of doing things is coupled with another assertion: "... The questions which belong to different domains of thought differ very often not only in the kind of subject-matter that they are about, but in the kinds of thinking that they require." ^ From the context it is clear that Ryle is speaking of different academic disciplines here, and this is an assertion against the usual assumption that the difference between different academic disciplines is one of difference of the domains that they handle. Ryle's assertion can be understood as saying that the difference is not to be construed in terms of the domain to be represented but in the very manner of representing. That is, thinking - which in this context is used as equivalent to 'representation' - is not of one type.13 Elsewhere Ryle faults Lockean terminology of 'ideas' and Meinongian terminology of Objects' for conceiving all "significata would be of one and the same type".14 Further, in various writings he repeatedly asserts that there are 11

n

CPI 154. 08

' position implies that facts are logically prior to objects and facts in turn are available to us This through signs which are used to differentiate the environment depending on practical and theoretical purposes. Since introduction of a differentiation is part of the concerned skill, we cannot separate the representing skill required in a particular disciplines from other skills connected with it. "..there is not and cannot be any univocal title for all the significata of expressions, since if there was such a title, all these significata would be of one and the same type. And just this is what was at

Ryle's account of his concerns

21

no finite sets of categories adequate to specify the discourse in all contexts, and in D throws a challenge to adequately classify the uses of expressions in the game of bridge in terms of the philosopher's favourite classifications.15 Similarly, the use of the same cards to play entirely different games is brought to bear on the phenomenon of using the same expressions to say different things. 16 The point of all these is to say that there are differences in kind between representation skills concealed by the uniform use of epithets such as 'descriptions' or 'representations'. The following passage is characteristic: ".. we are still able to be influenced by the argument that as the description of a table given by a physicist mentions and can mention nothing of what enters into the joiner's description, therefore the joiner's description must be abandoned. In letting this argument influence us, we are supposing that there is just one rather short bench for everything we can call 'descriptions'; we are forgetting that, for example, what the economist says about the investor could be listed as a 'description' of my brother, despite the fact that since the economist cannot say what my brother is like or even that I have a brother he is in no position, besides having no call, to describe him, in the same sense of 'describe' in which I am in a good position to describe him. The undiscriminating employment of smother expressions, like 'Quality', 'Property', 'Predicate', 'Attribute', 'Characteristic1, 'Description' and 'Picture' reinforces our other temptations to treat as like one another concepts which in their daily jobs do not work at all like one another. ' In short, thinking or representation-skill depends just as much upon that problem in the context of which or in relation to which one learns to say something about something. It is wrong to think that 'describing activity' and the skill to be learnt in order to practise it is of one type, and once learnt, it can be uniformly applied in relation to different domains 18 . There are differences in kind between one thinking-skill required to settle one type of question and the thinking-skill required to solve another type of problem. But unlike the implements used in a game, or, unlike the tools of a craftsman, the conceptual tools used in thinking lack clear identification marks singling it out as appropriate to one or the other domain. It is the lack bottom wrong with the Lockean terminology of 'ideas', and the Meinongian terminology of Objects', words which were employed to perform exactly this impossible task." CPU 180-1 15 D 10. 16 D 85-86

\lD85·

Often it is granted that there is equivocation in different uses of the word 'description', but nevertheless held that there is a basic use from which other uses are derivative - of course, 'derivative' not in the sense reducibility of other meanings to a fundamental meaning, but in some other loose sense. For instance, Quine suggests, while reviewing Goodman's Ways of World making, that physical theory has a claim to special deference because "nothing happens in the world, not the flutter of an eyelid, not the flicker of a thought, without some redistribution of micro physical states." Quine W.V.O. (1981) p.98. Though Ryle would not have objections to the claim that there may be systematic connections between different uses of the word 'description', he would reject any suggestion of hierarchy amongst them and a special status to one use against another, as implied by Quine's position.

22

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

of such ready identification marks of conceptual tools that makes thinking both flexible and susceptible to go off the track: flexible, because it is possible to take over the concepts appropriate to one domain to say something new and significant about another domain; susceptible to confusion, because the differences in kind between thinking skills required to solve problems of different domains are easily lost sight of. To sum up, Ryle conceives an academic discipline to be literally a 'discipline', i.e., in contrast to the usual tendency of conceiving a discipline as a body of propositions about a subject matter, he conceives it as a form of representation-pracfi'ce, a representation skill with standards or criteria of its own to judge its exercise a success or a failure. It follows that to ask questions about the world is to display different degrees of different kinds of representation skills, and 'theory of sciences' is meant to differentiate the different representation skills and the appropriate occasions for their exercise. Ryle's quest, "what philosophy is", is a search for an account of that kind of representation skill that is required to perform this task of differentiating representation skills and their appropriate occasions of use. The following passage, where Ryle formulates his conception of philosophy by way of an appreciation of his predecessor in the Waynflete chair, Collingwood, corroborates this interpretation of Ryle's master-question. "There are many branches of methodical enquiry into different departments of the world. There are mathematical sciences, and there are the humane or human studies of anthropology, .. There are also many disciplines which teach not truths but arts and skills, such as agriculture, tactics, music, architecture, painting, games, navigation, inference, and scientific method. All theories apply their own several principles and canons of enquiry and all disciplines apply their own several principles and canons of practice. These principles were called by Professor Collingwood their 'presuppositions'. In other words, all employ their own standards or criteria by which their particular exercises are judged successful or unsuccessful. Now it is one thing intelligently to apply principles; it is quite another thing to step back and to consider them. ... Professor Collingwood was an historian who was puzzled about the canons of historical research. He wanted to explain not only certain historical processes and events but also to elucidate what sort of a thing a good historical explanation would be. Nor was this a purely domestic or technological interest. For to see what is an historical explanation, is, among other things, to see how it differs from a chemical, mechanical, biological, anthropological, or psychological theory. The philosopher may, perhaps, begin by wondering about the categories constituting the framework of a single theory or discipline, but he cannot stop there. He must try to co-ordinate the categories of all theories and disciplines."19

19

CPU 194

Kyle's account of his concerns

23

Though the passage is a statement of the common terrain shared, the substitution of the term 'presupposition' by 'criteria of success and failure connected with the practice of a discipline' betrays a crucial difference between Ryle and Collingwood. For the latter the philosopher's function is to unearth the 'presuppositions' of a discipline. The term 'presupposition' is indicative of the propositional conception; though Collingwood does emphasise method, nevertheless, his conception of various disciplines including philosophy is conceived in terms of domains of study and information about them. This becomes clear by the fact that philosophy for him involves 'categorial propositions'20, i.e., it unearths facts; a philosophical task is thus of the nature of conveying information - of a special sort, no doubt, but nevertheless information. The substitution by 'criteria of judgement of success and failure of a practice' changes this by emphasising different disciplines to be different representational practices, the emphasis being on 'practice' rather than on 'representation'. Thereby the status of philosophic enquiry changes from that of disclosing a hidden fact (i.e. 'excavating' or 'laying bare' an 'underlying presupposition') to one of reflecting on or considering the pros and cons (i.e. the pragmatic worth) of some inherited and habituated way of practising something - habituated representation practices. To sum up, the term 'acquaintanceship with the world' used in the beginning is to be understood as a designation for ways of dealing with the world, and not for having a particular set of information about different domains. Consequently, Ryle's master question is a quest for understanding the nature of the skill involved in making our questions, asked in different contexts of dealing with the world, understandable. It is a quest to specify a kind of representational skill that makes other theoretical or representational practices understandable in their limits and relation to each other. In short, 'the acquaintanceship with the world that makes us aware of the questions we ask' is a designation for a skill which is both parasitic on other representation skills and revelatory of them - revelatory in the sense that it makes us aware of the differences in kind, and the appropriate occasions for the exercise of different representation skills. As Ryle saw it, the understanding of the specific philosophical kind of acquaintanceship with the world around us was vitiated by a major mistake for the last three centuries. It was the belief that there is a special realm of facts open only to philosophical investigation. It is in the course of explaining how such a belief could arise that Ryle introduces the now famous distinction 'knowing how' and 'knowing that' 21 and suggests that philosophical discussions on 'knowledge' have exclusively focused on the latter. But before going into this it is necessary to establish some parity between the issues 20

Cf. Collingwood R.G. (1940) See especially chapters IV and V. This was first introduced in essay 'Knowing how and Knowing that' in: CPU 212-25, and is supposed to have formed the nucleus of the CM.

24

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

discussed by the tradition under the term 'philosophy' and Ryle's concerns. What is attempted in sections 2.2 and 2.2.1 is only a summary sketch of an argument that will be elaborated in some detail in chapter 3. 2.2 'Philosophy' and the Notion of 'Intellect'22 'Philosophy' in the European tradition evolved from those notions originating in the Aristotelian demarcation of the capacity 'knowing why' (dihoti), from 'knowing that' (hoti). The former, in contrast to the latter, according to Aristotle, involves knowing the reasons and the capacity to teach. The terms like 'sophia' ('wisdom') and 'episteme' or 'scientia' - at times with varying nuances - were used to refer to the result of exercising this 'knowing why1. This description of the capacity to give reasons as the capacity to teach is an important clue indicating that 'knowing why' is a designation for the reflective capacity. For giving reasons for something, say an action, and teaching someone that something, are similar only in the sense that both of them stand in a relation of reflection to the action in question. However, 'knowing why' in Aristotle is also associated with the notion of 'intellect' - that capacity to discern 'essences' that make up 'nature': 'episteme' is not merely the result of reflection didactically presented, but also the representation of 'nature' in terms of 'essences'. For our purposes it is not necessary to go into the task of interpreting the notion of 'essence' in Aristotle. Suffice it to mention that a contrast was drawn between 'essences' accessible to 'intellect' ('nous') - that is presented in the form of a syllogism and termed 'episteme' or its Latin equivalent, 'scientia' - on the one hand and Opinions', the result of experience, on the other. Though it is doubtful whether this contrast was meant by Aristotle as a contrast between 'true' proposition and 'mere' opinion, that is how this contrast became prevalent by the 17th century. Thus, at least by the 17th century, if not earlier, in the European tradition 'intellect' as a capacity to reflect got tied to a notion of apprehending the 'essences' - in the sense of apprehending the 'real' nature of things. It is this notion of'intellect' that is the source of the 17th and 18th century belief that man is endowed with a 'natural light' or 'natural reason', the cultivation of which was sought after by the thinkers of the period.23 By the

2

In this section various assertions will be made in a summary fashion, for the elaboration and substantiation of which see next chapter. The following passages from Hobbes, EW, vol. I are typical of this sentiment: "Think not,.. the Reader, that the philosophy,.. is that which makes the philosophers' stones, nor that which is found in the metaphysical codes; but that it is the natural reason of man, busily flying up and down among the creatures, and bringing back a true report of their order, causes and effects. Philosophy, therefore, the child of the world and your own mind, is within yourself; perhaps not fashioned yet, but like the world its father, as it was in the beginning, a thing confused. Do, therefore,

'Philosophy and the notion of 'intellect'

25

rightful exercise of this natural capacity, it was believed, the doctrines accumulated through tradition - the Opinion' - can be scrutinised and discriminated into 'true' and 'false' ones. This scrutiny was looked upon both as showing what the rightful exercise of reason is and what the 'true opinions' (i.e. the valid results of exercising reason) are. In other words, it was believed that there is a right method of exercising reason, of which 'true opinions' or knowledge is the necessary' consequence. The method looked for was conceived as the method for 'certainty and advancement of knowledge'.24 So out of the 'knowing why1 developed both a notion of 'critique', that scrutinises the status of particular pieces of opinion proposed as knowledge, and the assumption that there is a right method of accumulating knowledge that has to be discovered.25 One can draw attention to a shift introduced in this process: both teaching and giving reasons, though reflective, are not second order activities in a way both a critique of opinions and judging some method to be right are. The former two, though they may make use of an implicit criterion of what the right reasons are and what the right way of teaching is, do not involve an enunciation of a criterion of right reasons and the correct teaching method. In as the statuaries do, who by hewing off that which is superfluous, do not make but find the image. .." 'Author's epistle to the Reader', p. xiii-iv. Further, "Philosophy seems to me amongst men now, in the same manner as com and wine are said to have been in the world in ancient time. For from the beginning there were vines and ears of com growing here and there in the fields; but no care was taken for the planting and sowing of them. .. In like manner, every man brought Philosophy, that is, Natural Reason, into the world with him; for all men can reason to some degree, and concerning some things: but where there is need of a long series of reasons, there most men wander out of the way, and fall into error for want of method, as it were for want of sowing and planting, that is of improving their reason." Of Philosophy', p. 1-2. As will be discussed in detail in chapter 3, both Descartes and Hobbes - and they exemplify the typical 17th century belief - believed that all human beings possess certain truths per se, and they cannot fall into error if only they give assent to those truths alone. Descartes builds a systematic epistemology based upon this: he considers judgement as the result of'perception of the intellect' and the Operation of the will' and error is rooted in the latter. He searches for a criterion such that one can identify the perceptions of the intellect so that one can avoid giving assent to anything else. What he ends up with is the criterion of 'clarity and distinctness', i.e. if one assents to only those things which one perceives (intellectually) clearly and distinctly, then one avoids error. His 'Rules for the direction of intelligence' is meant to provide some rules so as to bring about an increase of knowledge in accordance with this assumption. Cf.: ".. by a method 1 mean certain and simple rules, such that, if a man observe them accurately, he shall never assume what is false as true, .. but will always gradually increase his knowledge and so arrive at a true understanding of all that does not surpass his powers...These two points must be carefully noted, viz. never to assume what is false as true, and to arrive at a knowledge which takes in all things. For, if we are without the knowledge of any of the things which we are capable of understanding, that is only because we have never perceived any way to bring us to this knowledge, or we have fallen into the contrary error. But if our method rightly explains how our mental vision should be used, so as not to fall into the contrary error, and how deduction should be discovered in order that we may arrive at the knowledge of all things, I do not see what else is needed to make it complete;.." HR, p.9. (emphasis mine) Thus philosophy came to be associated with reflections on, and specification of methods of, evaluating and obtaining knowledge - in short, reflections on 'thought', both in the sense of exercising a 'thinking1 skill and the result of such exercise.

26

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

contrast, both the 'critique of opinions' and the search for 'a method of discovery' are avowedly undertaken to enunciate a criterion to evaluate opinions as true or false and a criterion to identify when a method is right. Thus, philosophy came to be associated with the discourse on method or discourse on knowledge. But this discourse, just as the exercise of the Aristotelian 'knowing why', is liable to an ambiguous understanding: it was a reflective discourse, but at the same time it was conceived as presenting the discovery of what constitutes knowledge and what constitutes the method, the analogues to the Aristotelian presentation of Nature in terms of essences. Thus arises a tendency to conceive the reflection on 'thought' - thought, both in the sense of a thinking skill and the result of exercising that thinking skill - as an investigation into an object-domain, 'thought'. 2.2.1 Theory of Mind1 The notion of 'thinking' or 'thought' is closely related to another theme that originated in Aristotle and continues to be an important current - sometimes overt, sometimes covert - shaping the philosophic tradition. It is the theme of identifying a capacity that demarcates humans from other animals. Aristotle distinguishes what he calls 'psyche' into vegetative, sensible, and 'rational' ('intellect') ones,26 and conceives man as having intellect in addition to vegetative and sensible psyche. It has to be noticed that the notion of 'rationality' or 'intellect' is introduced by Aristotle in the context of specifying different capacities exhibited by living beings and not in that of - in Ryle's pregnant phrase - "the egotistic pastime of giving mankind testimonials".27 Both in CM, his famous book and in T, Ryle top can be considered as addressing this task. CM opens with the declaration, "This book offers what may with reservations be described as a theory of mind" and further down explains in what sense a theory of mind is attempted. It is an effort to give an account of the use of the 'mental conduct words' or 'the concepts of mental powers and operations'.28 If we use the term 'intelligence' as a cover word for all the mental conduct words applied to human beings (such as for example, 'clever', 'careful', 'witty', 'stupid', 'silly' etc.),29 the task the theory of mind has to accomplish is to answer the question: what is it to conceive a human being as having intelligence? 'Intelligence1 has to be taken here not as a word contrasted with 'stupidity', but as related to the word 'intelligible'. Something can be said to be 26

Cf. De Anima, bk.II. Ch. 2 and 3, especially 4 M b 33. Cf. Ά Rational animal' CPU (415-34), The phrase, 'egotistical pastime of giving mankind testimonials' occurs in p. 433. (In Aristotle, however, there is a normative component too. Cf. chapter

2830 28 29

Cf. CM 9. Cf. CM 26, cf. Also ' A Rational animal' in CPU.

'Philosophy and the notion of 'intellect'

27

'intelligible' in contrast to being 'mysterious'. Again this use of the word 'intelligible' can be either in the context of grasping something in terms of its causal circumstances - for instance apprehending the straight rod as bent as due to the refraction of light - or in the sense of understanding the 'meaning' of an action - for instance, understanding the observed twitch of an eye as a wink of approval. Put differently, taking a single example for illustration, there is a difference between the twitch of an eye as behaviour that can be explained causally (in terms of physiology for instance) and as an action that needs to be understood. Seeking understanding here is different from seeking a causal explanation, even though actions too are understood by locating them in a context. In other words, there is a sense of 'intelligibility' regarding actions that is (at least on the face of it, even if on enquiry some theorists may dismiss the distinction as mere appearance) different from causal explanation. Intelligence is attributed to human beings both in the sense that actions have this quality and in the sense that one is capable of understanding the actions of others. Accordingly, the theory of mind that Ryle is interested in can be formulated into twin questions: (i) what does it mean to say of an action that it is intelligible? (ii) what does it mean to attribute to someone a capacity to understand? We can consider the task of providing a theory of mind as the task of making the intelligibility of actions intelligible - of making 'understanding1 understandable. 2.2.2 CM's Relation to the Philosophical Tradition The CM is also an avowed polemic against what Ryle calls "the official doctrine", "Cartesianism" and "para-mechanical hypotheses" etc.30 But even on the first reading it is evident that the polemicised position, 'Cartesianism', is not looked upon as a competitor to the theory the CM proposes in the manner of one scientific theory against another. It is interesting, therefore, to ask in what relation this polemicised position stands to the theory of mind to be proposed by CM. Ryle's answer can be discerned from his introduction to CM: "It is, .. , one thing to know how to apply such concepts (i.e. concepts of mental powers and operations), quite another to know how to correlate them with one another and with concepts of other sorts. ... For certain purposes it is necessary to determine the logical cross-bearings of the concepts which we know quite well how to apply. The attempt to perform this operation upon the concepts of the powers, operations and states of minds has always been a big part of the task of philosophers. ... Some of these enquiries have 30

Cf. CM 13-25.

28

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

made considerable regional progress, but it is part of the thesis of this book that during the three centuries of the epoch of natural science the logical categories in terms of which the concepts of mental powers and operations have been coordinated have been wrongly selected. Descartes left as one of his main philosophical legacies a myth which continues to distort the continental geography of the subject." 31

Here, it has to be noticed, Ryle indicates on the one hand that he shares a theoretical concern with philosophers of yester years - or rather he is indicating that the philosophical tradition is addressing the same cluster of issues which he calls 'determining the logical cross-bearing of the concepts which we know quite well how to apply'. On the other hand he suggests that the tradition is vitiated by a certain distorting myth hoisted by the model inculcated by the successful natural science. This means CM's engaging in the field identified as the common terrain for itself and the philosophical tradition involves a double aspect - of solving the problems as well as showing what it is to solve the problem in this field.32 In other words, the polemic is not meant to show that the polemicised theory is wrong in the sense of being false, but rather meant to show that it is a pseudo-theory motivated by pseudo questions. By showing this, however, one also achieves an illumination of the field of discourse concerning mental powers and operations. 31

Cf. CM.9-10, Also see CM 298-99 and CPU 446. In "Phenomenology versus 'the concept of mind'" (CPI 179-196) CM is described as a "sustained essay in phenomenology" (p. 188) suggesting an affinity between his concerns and that of Brentano and Husserl. In another essay what in his understanding the word 'phenomenology' stands for is described; this description is in fact an elaboration of the sentences from CM quoted above: "Husserl uses the term 'Phenomenology' to denote the analysis of the root types of mental functioning. And he tries to show (1) that phenomenology is anyhow part of philosophy; (2) that it is an enquiry that can become a vigorous science; (3) that it is a priori. (1) and (3) seem to me to be true; (2) seems to me either false or an awkward terminological innovation. For I don't think philosophy or any part of philosophy is properly called 'science'. Philosophical methods are neither scientific nor unscientific. ... It is not a new discovery nor a new theory that at least part, and an important part, of philosophy consists in the analytical investigation of the types of mental functioning. Theories of knowledge, and belief, opinion, perception, error, imagination, memory, inference, and abstraction, which can all be classed together as epistemology, have ever since Plato constituted at least an important part of philosophy. And anyhow a large part of Ethics has, since Plato and Aristotle, consisted in the analysis of concepts of motive, impulse, desire, purpose, intention, choice, regret, shame, blame, approbation, and the like. And while part of the treatments given by historical philosophers to these subjects have been not been analytical, but speculative or hypothetical or dogmatic, other parts have always been strictly analytical and critical and therefore have been proper cases of what Husserl describes as the phenomenological method." (CPI 168) The mistake committed by Husserl of thinking Philosophy to be some kind of science is identified as the basic mistake, being a common denominator between Cartesianism and Platonism (the latter term is Ryle's term for the theory that Philosophy is a study of meaning-entities) (CPI 250). Ryle credits Wittgenstein with providing a route to emancipation from this mistake: "Some years after the Tractatus Wittgenstein was able, in practice if not in explicit doctrine, to disentangle the required notion of elucidation from the obsessive notion of object-description and so to rescue conceptual investigations from the menace of ineffability without re-assimilating them to inspection of entities" CPU 188.

What is 'Caitesianism'?

29

2.3 What is 'Cartesianism'? This double task - of engaging in the issues that occupied the tradition and of correcting the tradition by showing how to engage with those issues - also indicates the function of the term 'Cartesianism' for Ryle: on the one hand, it is a polemical term designating a view of philosophy and the philosophy of mind to which he is opposed; but on the other hand, it is also used as a diagnostic term to characterise a certain interconnected line of arguments in Modern philosophy. From the very beginning Kyle's critics alleged that his use of the term 'Cartesianism' was unclear and misleading, besides having no historical justification.33 I contend that this criticism is mistaken. I have to face therefore the task of both clarifying what Ryle means by this term and showing that what Ryle designates by it is in fact a historically identifiable and philosophically influential line of thinking. This section (2.3) undertakes the first task by assembling various elements that are identified by Ryle as the constituents of the position he polemicises against. An attempt at showing the historical importance of the doctrines identified as Cartesianism will be taken up later in chapter 3. Cartesianism is in the first place an epithet for a line of thinking as to what it is to give an account of thought?* The features this line of thinking has for Ryle can be gleaned from the following three main items he associates with Cartesianism: a) giving a causal or semi-physiological account of thinking in place of elucidation of the concepts of thinking activities,35 b) a theory of meaning that he often calls as 'Fido'-Fido theory or name theory. 36 c) the definition of thinking activities in terms of 'accusatives'.37 33

Cf. Hampshire S. 'Critical review of The Concept of Mind in: Wood O.P. and Pitcher Ο (1970) (p. 17-44), p. 20. This, Ryle repeats often, "... (the dogma of ghost in the machine) is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and mistake of a special kind. .. It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another." CM 17. The term 'category mistake' will be elucidated in section 2.4.) 35 Cf. CM 21-4, 274-78 and 298-300; especially: "Now the great epistemologists, Locke, Hume, and Kant were in main advancing the Grammar of Science, when they thought that they were discussing parts of the occult life-story of persons acquiring knowledge. They were discussing the credentials of sorts of theories, but they were doing this in paraphysiological allegories. ..They were causal hypotheses substituted for functional description of the elements of published theories." (CM 299300) -io Cf. CPU 352-54. Cf. CPI 174: "It was an assumption rooted in the Cartesian and Lockean theories of mental life that what I am aware of when I am aware of something must always be an 'idea'. ... The theory of intentionality is an attempt not to repudiate, but to modify, elaborate and reform the 'idea' epistemology. The first modification was the distinction between the act and its object, the ideatio

30

Enquiry into the "rational animal"

A coherent reconstruction of what Ryle understands by these three items will be attempted in the following pages. 2.3.1 Confusing Logical with Phenomenological Questions and ActionQueries with Causal-Queries As mentioned in section 2, a meta-theoretical interest in theoretical thinking is the main thrust of philosophy in the modern period. Its concern is with the thinking of such sorts as that result in a description or an indicative assertion that something is the case.38 But even within this narrow focus, there are two separate interests which were not clearly distinguished. First, the philosophers of the modern period believed that there are certain features to scientific theories that demarcate them from non-scientific ones and they were seeking to identify those features that make theories scientific. Second, they believed that there are certain procedures that necessarily result in knowledge, and they were interested in enunciating those procedures as a method of advancing knowledge.39 The former is an interest in theory as an end-product of a thinking activity and the latter is an interest in theoretical thinking as an activity. One may consider a theory as consisting of different kinds of statements and statements, in their turn, of different kinds of expressions. Thus, for

and the ideatum, in the idea of a circle, the circle is something with a centre but the ideating of it is not. But it was still supposed that the circle was really existing or occurring in the mind together with the act of which it was the 'content'." (CPI 174). Intentionality theory of Husserl, Ryle explains further, adds to this differentiation of mental functioning into ideatio and ideatum, a definitional element, viz. mental as necessarily directed to ideatum. Ryle coins the term 'accusative' to render the 'Gegenstand' and elucidates Husserl's main doctrine: "Now for his main doctrine in Phenomenology. It is an 'essential intuition', that is it can be known apriori that all consciousness is consciousness of something. To wish is to wish for something, to regret is to regret something, .. To every piece of mental functioning there is intrinsically correlative something which is the 'accusative' of that functioning." (CPI 171) This characterisation of Intentionality theory reappears in CM as a characterisation of intellectuatist doctrine which is said to try "to define intelligence in terms of the apprehension of truths, instead of the apprehension of the truths in terms of intelligence". (CM 29) The intellectualist doctrine in turn is said to be "the main support for the dogma of the ghost in the machine".(CM 28.) The concern of the philosophers like Locke, Kant etc. is identified as with the structures of the didactic discourse concerning what is the case; another of his term for this is: 'published' scientific theories. See the note 35. We may call the former 'the features of correct representation' and the latter 'the features of correct procedures of research'. K. Lorenz makes use of the distinction of science as presentation and science as research for identifying two different concerns in the philosophy of science, and to show how the confusion of one with the other results in transcendentalism on the one hand, and evolutionism on the other. His point of making this distinction, however, is to show in what way these two concerns, though logically distinguishable, are nevertheless not separable in science as an enterprise. Cf. 'Science, a rational enterprise?' in: Hilpinen (ed.), (1980) p.63-8.

What is 'Cartesianism'?

31

instance, in a statement: 'planets circle around the sun',40 the word 'planet' can be considered as a 'substantive expression', and the sentence itself can occur as a 'premise' or as a 'conclusion' of a theory. Similarly one can speak of the 'elements' or 'constituents' and 'the principles that determine their interconnection' in a theory. But this kind of characterisation is only an analytical account of the structure of something already understood: what are identified as such constituents are the logical distinctions arrived at by the analysis of whole and not separable entities identifiable in isolation from those theories in question. 'Substantive expression', 'premise', 'conclusion' and the like are terms used to specify different kinds of functions which different constituents fulfil in a theory or statement already identified, but not 'constituents' in the sense of the raw material for the construction of a theory. In contrast to such interests in the structures of the theory as a finished product, one may be interested in giving an account of the theoretical activity such as constructing an astronomical theory. On the face of it, here too we are justified in saying that the words or expressions appear as a part - for instance, the word 'planet' or some equivalent of it is a definitive constituent in the thinking activity about astronomical phenomena. However, one has to distinguish the identification of the words and the functions they fulfil, while giving an analytical account of a theory, from the specification of the use of the words in a theory-constructing activity.41 In both cases we may indistinguishably speak of concepts - i.e. we may term both the function a word fulfils in a sentence or theory, as well as the use of the words in thinking activity, as 'concepts' - but the queries focused on the structures of theories as end-products of thinking are different from the queries focused on the use of words in thinking activity. The former Ryle calls 'logical questions', in contrast to the latter which he calls 'phenomenological questions', or sometimes as 'epistemological questions' concerning concepts.42 If logical interest is not properly distinguished from the phenomenological interest, one is prone to hypostatise the logical distinctions arrived at by analysis into entities and conceive them to be the ingredients of thinking processes that result in theories. That is, we are likely to construe the accounts of the logical structure of the published theories as accounts of the processes undergone in constructing those theories, and thereby conceive the 'elements', 'principles of inter-connection' and the like used in logical accounts to be referring to the ingredients of as well as the processes of bringing about the concatenation in thinking activity that results in those theories.43

This distinction between 'logical' and 'phenomenological' questions as well as their inter-relation are discussed in: Thinking thoughts and having concepts' in: CPU (446-50). See chapter four for a detailed elucidation . 42 Cf. CPU 446. 43 Cf. CM 272-3.

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In the process the very nature of the questions concerning thinking or thought gets clouded. Both logical and phenomenological questions are in fact those pertaining to the criteria - when does a word or sentence fulfil a function and when not, when is the use of a word correct and when not, etc., - and they have nothing to do with seeking a 'hidden fact' that has to be revealed by a close observation or a method of hypothesis. That is, they demand the elucidation of the criterion for judgements concerning well-formed or illformed sentences or theories on the one hand, and the criterion for success and failure of thinking activities such as learning, discovering, inventing and theory-building etc., on the other. Instead, one is prone to think of them in the model of causal questions as in the case of the domain of physics. Thus, instead of addressing the task of elucidating the criterion of success and failure of thinking activities, one thinks that one is performing the task of identifying the causal factors responsible for the generation of the 'thinking phenomenon'. Ryle claims that exactly such a thing has happened44: that part of philosophy traditionally called 'theory of knowledge' or 'epistemology' is said to overlook the distinction between theory-constructing and theory-using or theory-exposition activities45 - and thereby mistake the characteristics of didactic discourse to be characteristics of theory-constructing (i.e., enquiry) activity - and also to have offered what is legitimate as a functional description of the elements of published theories as if it is a causal hypothesis of how these theories get built, or rather how these theories come into being. Thus a two-fold mistake is committed. First, a functional description of the product gets misidentified as the description of the activity of thinking. Secondly, such a description is taken to be the description of the process of the generation of theories, i.e., a description of a causal process. As a result, the search for an account of thinking, instead of being identified as a question concerning criteria, comes to be looked upon as a factual question concerning the domain 'thought', and a semi-physiological hypothesis postulating special 'mental processes' is put forward to explain 'knowledge' or the thinking phenomenon. This confusion of criterial questions with causal questions can be formulated in still more general terms as a supposition that 'thought' is an object realm of which philosophy delivers information. This is identified by Ryle as an assumption characterising the Cartesian line of thinking. This assumption burdens philosophy with a persistent question. One has to identify 44

Cf. 299-300. In chapter 3,1 will elaborate how the teaching method was the focus of the conception of episteme in Aristotle and scientia in the medieval Aristotelians. I will also show how the criterion of necessity, understood in a particular way, and as applicable to apodeixis, was taken over by Descartes as an instrument of discovery in his 'method of doubt'. The distinction between method of presentation and of discovery has a long history, and it has very different nuances in different periods and different authors. Compare Leibniz's use as elaborated by H. Hermes (1969) with that of Reichenbach (1938), Ch. 1. See also note 39.

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the entities in question before seeking information about them; thus, one is led to ask what entities constitute the domain 'thought'. Since theories are meant to be about the world, i.e., they are representations, a domain of the representation-entities was conceived - a domain for which philosophy is supposed to provide descriptions. But the representations are in some manner or other distinguishable into a communication- or person-aspect and an object-aspect (for instance, the 'signs' and Objects represented'). However, since representations are conceived as a realm of objects, this distinction gets conceived as a kind of relation between two realms of objects - what is going on in the 'mind1 of the agent of thought on the one hand, and the object about which thinking takes place on the other. This is underpinned by the fact that 'to think' is a transitive verb: one tends to assume that corresponding to the grammatical accusative necessary to satiate a sentence containing 'to think' as a verb, there must occur a logical accusative. Extending the analogy further, it would imply that just as the meaning of 'to think' in a sentence is a function of its grammatical accusative, similarly thinking activity is the function of the object about which thinking takes place. This notion is termed by Ryle 'definition of thinking in terms of its accusatives'. That is, it is assumed that there must be some sort of entity towards which thinking as a process is directed, and it is that object which determines the type of thinking it is.46 As a result, 'what constitutes the domain, 'thought'?' can be interpreted in two different ways: a) What does thinking or thought consist of? or: what are the ingredients of the thinking process? b) What are the objects apprehended by thought? or: what are the objects that constitute the accusatives of thinking?' The first question is based on the assumption that thinking activity is a procession of representation-entities, and the second on the assumption that thinking has to be defined in terms of accusatives. (In terms of the elucidation of the previous chapter this means the assumption that there is a non-semiotic presentation relation between objects and the agent.) In the next three sections (2.3.2, 2.3.3 and 2.3.4) these assumptions are elucidated. 2.3.2 'Psychologism1: Thought' as Concatenation of Elements Ryle situates his work within the discussions in the aftermath of the dissolution of what he calls the 'mental science' conception of philosophy. He connects the 'mental science' conception to a theory of judgement whose originators are identified to be Locke and Mill, contributing idea-centred

This is what the famous 'intentionality' thesis is. For an explanation of the term 'accusative' which Ryle has coined in connection with Husserl's doctrine of intentionality, see note 37.

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epistemology and word-centred theory of meaning respectively.47 He terms this theory of judgement as the 'psychologistic' account of thought. The critique initiated by Brentano (along with his pupil, Husserl), Bradley and Frege of this 'psychologistic' account of thought prevailing in their times is identified as the source of the beginning of 20th century analytical philosophy.48 'Psychologism' is characterised as involving three assumptions. (i) Giving an account of thought is a matter of identifying the elements and the construction or concatenation rules ("association rules") that constitute thought. (ii) The elements constituting thought - the representation elements - are accessible only to oneself in contrast to the 'words' that are accessible intersubjectively. Ryle suggests the possibility of thinking in silence to be the source of this assumption.49 'Idea' and 'impression' were the terms used to designate such assumed, only privately accessible representation-elements. (iii) These 'ideas' are logically prior to public representations like words and make them meaningful by virtue of their association with 'ideas'. Thinking' thus comes to be looked upon as a special process involving private representations. It has to be noticed, however, that the latter two assumptions are parasitic on the first and even if one dispenses with them, still one may be caught up in the basic mistake underlying psychologism, the mistake of conceiving thought as being made up of entities. In other words, the This connection is not done by Ryle directly, but he traces the emancipation of conceptual studies from the conception of philosophy as mental science to a "revolt against the combined empiricism of Hume and Mill" concerning mathematics (CPI 180). In this characterisation, the idea-psychology is traced to Hume, but it is more often identified by Ryle himself with Locke (cf. CPI 250). Further, he associates the emancipation from philosophy as mental science with a revolt against Mill's theory of meaning. It is reasonable therefore to make the connection, and consider philosphy as Mental science as being underpinned by Locke's idea-epistemology and Mill's name-based semantics Cf. 'The Theory of Meaning' (CPU 350-72) and RP 6-8. Also: "The major trends of philosophy of the past hundred years in both the English and the German speaking world have derived directly or indirectly from recoil against the British school of thought which began with Locke and culminated in John Stuart Mill. Subsequent theories of knowledge, perception, deduction, induction, probability, mathematics and semantics (not to speak of ethics, politics and political economy) can nearly all be traced back to revolts against the conclusions and the premises of this school. In particular Mill's System of Uigic (1843) stimulated (chiefly as an emetic) a galaxy of original thinkers into reconsideration of the principles of logic, epistemology and psychology." CPI 215. In a similar vein: "Mill's theory of Meaning set the questions, and in large measure, determined their answers for thinkers as different as Brentano, in Austria; Meinong and Husserl ...Bradley, Jevons, Venn, Frege, James, Peirce, Moore and Russell. ... Nearly all of the thinkers whom I have listed were in vehement opposition to certain parts of Mill's doctrine, and it was the other part of it from which they often drew their most effective weapons." (CPU 352.) Further he mentions the following as central to Mill's theory of meaning: "Mill, following Hobbes's lead, starts off his account of the notion of meaning by considering single words Next, Mill, again following Hobbes's lead, takes it for eranted that all words or nearly all words, are names,..." ibid. 48 RP6-11. 49 CM 27.

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first assumption sets the scenario for the latter two. It is worth stressing this point. For psychologism is a doctrine meant to answer a question and one has to distinguish this answer from the question which occasioned this answer. As an answer psychologism may be abandoned without thereby abandoning the question that occasioned it. Thus it can be shown that the same question is at the root of the continuing tendency to postulate some medium specific to thinking and the debate whether there is one or more media innate to thinking - whether propositional medium is sufficient to account for human thinking or whether one has to postulate an image medium etc. Even when 'language' instead of 'ideas' is supposed to be the medium of thinking, the assumption remains that 'thinking' is to be conceived in terms of procession of representation-entities?® Ryle singles out two characteristics of this first assumption for attention. First, it does not make the crucial distinction between the 'carriers' or medium through which 'thinking' is carried out and thinking itself, i.e., between the 'psychical' images (or 'linguistic expressions') on the one hand and what they 'mean' on the other.51 It is this neglect of the meaning aspect of thinking-action that lies at the root of mistaking the task of providing a theory of mind as one of giving a causal account by specifying the ingredient 'stuff, The notion 'mentalese' in Fodor, and more generally, the notion of 'representation' in modular theories of mind prevalent in cognitive science is based upon this assumption. Cf. Fodor, J.A. (1975), (1981), (1984). In RP 8.10 Ryle suggests that both Bradley and Frege were "in revolt against, ... one dominant element in the teachings of John Stuart Mill. Mill, .. had tended to treat problems of logic and epistemology as problems to be solved by associationist psychology. Frege and Bradley in different ways and with different emphasis distinguished sharply between psychology on the one side and philosophy and logic on the other; between the ideas, impressions and feelings that were the subjectmatter of psychology and whatever it was that formed the subject-matters of philosophy and logic. Next, both detected the same philosophical superstition behind the associationist account of thoughts, namely the assumption that any thought (or judgement or proposition) is a concatenation of separately existing and separately inspectable pieces. ... Against this false psychology and the underlying assumption that terms are prior to propositions, both Frege and Bradley maintained that a thought or judgement is a functional unity, possessing, of course, distinguishable features but not composed out of detachable pieces. ..Next, both recognised that judgements or propositions are not all of one hallowed subject-predicate pattern and that arguments are not all of the syllogistic pattern. ... Logic has to study manifold differences of logical form, not iron out these differences. Next, both saw that it is not extrinsic but intrinsic to a thought to be true or false, or to have Objective reference'. ... The associationist psychology had seemed to reduce a piece of thinking to the occurring of an introspectible idea or gaggle of ideas, .. Describing thinking without mentioning what makes it successful or else unsuccessful thinking, is like describing the batman's movements without the mentioning the bowling. Finally,... the notion of Meaning became .. an indispensable .. instrument of philosophical discourse. Logicians and philosophers no more examine the private and momentary images and impressions that are the material of psychology, than they examine the English or Russian phrases or sentences that are the material of philology. In investigating the structure of thoughts they are investigating what these ideas and these dictions mean. It is because our dictions have sense or, as Bradley less naturally says, because our images have meanings, that what we think is capable of being true or false of reality and capable of implying and being incompatible with other judgements about reality. The story of 20th century philosophy is very largely the story of this notion of sense or meaning...."

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'event' or 'process' that constitutes thought. The underlying model is physicalist in that the constituent elements of thought are assumed to be entities available for isolation, identification and description.52 Second, complementing the first mistake, psychologism assumes that thought can be elucidated as a concatenation of constituent elements such as 'ideas' and thus assumes that elements of thought are logically prior to thought itself. As discussed earlier, there is a meaningful way of speaking of the constituents of thought, but such constituents are the results of logical analysis and not the elements separable and available independent of thought. Therefore 'thought' is logically prior to its constituents. But psychologism assumes that 'ideas' and 'terms' are prior to thought or propositions and the latter are concatenation of the former. As mentioned earlier, Ryle identifies the Linguistic Turn in Philosophy as a rebellion against a theory of judgement having Locke's idea-centred epistemology and Mill's word-centred theory of meaning as their components. Whereas the idea-centred epistemology is based upon the assumed legitimacy of the question 'what does thinking consist of?' and launches on the enterprise of isolating and identifying the 'elements and processes of thought1, the wordcentred theory of meaning assumes that the meaning of a word is logically prior to sentences or assertions, i.e. thought-elements are logically prior to thought. Consequently, a chemical analogy suggests itself for a task which is in fact a reflective one: analysis as a task of making the judgement or thought understandable would be conceived as a task of isolating the 'ultimate simples' and the rules in accordance with which they form complexes.53 -1

Ryle characterises as against this the 'revolution in philosophy' as consisting of the distinction between the 'idea' or 'word' and the meaning of it. That is, the meaning is not to be confused with the association of one thing with another, and therefore it is not the consideration of the element whether it is idea or word - that is important, but rather the meaning of an element. Secondly, it is realised that the propositions are prior to terms. Thirdly, the goal of analysis is conceived as that of isolating the simple statables rather than the simple namables. Thus arose an interest in what can and cannot be said. In this regard the discovery of nonsense played an important role. It was realised that sentences that are perfectly in grammatical order can nevertheless state nothing. Thus an interest arose in the criteria of successful and unsuccessful speech. Analysis therefore implies not merely isolating the simple statements, but rather the simple statables, that is, finding a criterion to distinguish a statement from a nonsensical utterance. Cf. "The traditional analysis of a judgement into detachable terms, occasionally and temporarily harnessed together by a supervenient copula, was the mould of which Mill's chemistry of idea-compounds was only a new-fangled filling. Against this false psychology and against the underlying assumption that terms are prior to propositions, both Frege and Bradley maintained that a thought or judgement is a functional unity, possessing, of course, distinguishable features but not composed out of detachable pieces." RP 6-7. This characterisation applies to 'Logical atomism'. (The designations chosen by Russell, 'atomic propositions' and 'molecular propositions' have a conspicuous association with chemistry). Against this assertion it may be objected that for logical atomism the sentence is the unit of meaning and not words. However, the function of analysis is conceived as one of getting at the 'basic' building blocks. The birth of sense-data theories of perception was closely related with this assumption. The belief was that there are some basic data acquaintable without the mediation of the signs and through which signs can be elucidated. Rosenberg J.F. (1974, reprint, 1981) characterises this kind of theory

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Since at some stage meaning or representation-aspect has to be brought in, and since Locke-Mill theory conceives thought- or representation-elements to be logically prior to and as additively constituting thought, representation has to be made sense of at the level of 'elements', i.e. 'ideas' or words. This opens up the possibility of conceiving representation as one object standing for another object, i.e., to reduce the meaning-aspect to a relation between the name and the object named. Thus clarification of thought would be an activity of giving definitions in terms of the names of the ultimate nameables, and the nameables themselves must be considered as 'given1 to subjects independent of these names. This is the non-semiotic presentation relation as discussed in chapter 1. Within this perspective, the conceptual elucidation would mean one of two things: (i) splitting up the 'judgement' or sentence into component words or ideas and specifying their 'meaning' by correlating them to the objects, processes and structures of the world; or (ii) noting introspectively the elements, processes and structures of the judgement. Analysis considered as reflection on judgements thus transforms itself into an activity of observation of'inner' states of the process of judging - in contrast to the (physical-)sciences of things which are observation of things 'external'. This is how the view of philosophy as 'mental science' comes into being. Either way, a world divided into specified objects available non-semiotically or in a universal context is presupposed, within which language or ideas function as a more or less perfect labelling repertoire. 2.3.3 'Platonism': 'Meanings' as a Realm of Entities Ryle identifies the rebellion against the mental science conception of philosophy from two different sources, one arising from the reflections on the nature of propositions or judgements in mathematics and logic, and the other arising from the reflections on the nature of psychical research.54 The intellectual scene providing the backdrop for the rebellion was the one characterised by the tremendous advances in the field of logic and mathematics and the rise of psychology as an empirical science. The latter made the speculative psychology of philosophers lose its credibility, and the former demonstrated in a spectacular manner that the analysis of thought is independent of the considerations of mental processes involved. In this situation, champions of mathematics and logic contrasted the rigour and universality of the logical and mathematical propositions with the inexact and only probable propositions that can be made on the basis of the introspective as 'agent semantics' and shows how in contemporary semantics such a tendency is widely prevalent; see chapter 2. 54 Cf. CPI 215-217 and CPU 367-69.

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observation of the 'association of ideas' - which had been recommended for the foundations of mathematics by Mill. Thus they conceived "a realm of nonmaterial and non-mental 'logical objects' - such objects as concepts, truths, falsehoods, classes, numbers and implications".55 A similar distinction was also drawn by Brentano and his pupils, Meinong and Husserl, who asserted that thinking is 'intentional' i.e., it is always a thinking of something. As such one can distinguish the mental act of thinking from the 'accusative' or content of thought. What is true of the content need not be true of the act and viceversa. Brentano's interest in formulating this was to distinguish the factual and conceptual aspects of psychological investigation: he insisted that before attempting to describe a mental act one has to have identified the type of act that is in question. He attempted to specify the root types of mental functioning, and such activity of making the root types of mental functioning available he termed 'phenomenology'. But this 'phenomenology' as he understood it rested on identifying the 'accusatives' of thought, because he thought that the root types can only be defined in terms of such 'accusatives'. In consequence, a realm of concepts or meanings was conceived as logically prior to a conceptual specification of the root-types of mental acts - specifying which is a precondition of establishing empirical psychology. Thus, a distinction came to be drawn between the realm of concepts or meanings on the one hand and the realm of facts (both pertaining to physical and psychical spheres) on the other. The former was assigned to philosophy, and the latter to the domains of sciences. Despite the drawing of this crucial distinction, however, the concept of philosophy as an investigation of a special domain persisted. The criticism of psychologism by people like Frege and Husserl meant in effect only a shift from one domain of entities - those supposedly 'psychic* entities constituting the thinking-activity - to another supposed domain of entities constituting the objects apprehended by the thinking activity. In other words, whereas for psychologism the thinking activity is the focus, for these thinkers it is the results of thinking activity. Whereas psychologism hypostatises the analytically arrived at structural elements of the published theories and offers them as the entities that thinking activity consists of, now the same hypostatised entities are offered as entities of a third realm, other than and independent of the physical and the psychical realms - as the accusatives of the thinking activity. Ryle's designation for this doctrine is 'Platonism'.56 55

CPU 369.

Cf." During the fist twenty-five years of this century, many philosophers gave... a Platonic answer. Philosophy studies not the workings of the minds or, of course, of bodies either; it studies the denizens of a third domain, the domain of abstract, or conceptual entities, ... This idea enabled its holders to continue to say that philosophy was the science of something, while denying that it was the science of any ordinary subject-matter; to champion its autonomy as a discipline, while denying that it was just one science among others; to give it the standing of a science while admitting its unlikeness to the sciences." CPI 250.

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2.3.4 'Intellectualist Doctrine', 'Inner Perception' and the Doctrine of 'Accusatives'. Underlying both psychologism and Platonism a certain conception of the intellectual action can be identified - what Ryle calls conceiving intellectual action in terms of the accusatives. He connects this to the status accorded to the 'intellect' and the way in which it was conceived. I interpreted the Aristotelian 'knowing why' and therefore by implication his notion of 'intellect' as the capacity for reflection. However I also mentioned that reflection was conceived as apprehending the 'essences' constituting 'nature1. Thus in Aristotle, the theme demarcating the human from the animal was tied to the theme of gaining an inkling into 'essences'. Ryle suggests that this is due to the propensity of conceiving the capacity for reflection in analogy with perceptual capacity and looking upon 'intellect' as 'some single and simple property' (identifiable in a similar manner as sense-organs) differentiating man from animals. The difference was sought in terms of some simple identifiable analogue of sense-organ possessed by man alone.57 Just as each sense-organ is capable of apprehending some definite sense-specific qualities, it was believed that there must be some analogue feature corresponding to the intellect and apprehensible by the intellect. In Aristotle it was the 'essence' or forms constituting the natural kinds; these forms were considered as discernible through the exercise of 'intellect' and such an exercise was thus termed 'theoria' (which originally meant Vision1). Thus, the intellect - the differentia specifica of man from animals - was elucidated in terms of theoretical capacity and this theoretical capacity was conceived as analogous to the sense-capacity.58 With the focus in the mediaeval period on the syllogism that presents the natural kinds in the form of hierarchically ordered propositions expressing essences, intellect becomes the capacity to perceive theoretical propositions. It is worthwhile emphasising this: the discursive capacity was conceived in analogy with perceptual capacity and theoretical activity was conceived as an activity analogous to perceiving. The assumption that theorising is the primary differentia of humans from animals Ryle calls 'the intellectualist doctrine1 or sometimes 'intellectualist legend',59 and it has important consequences for the way in which the human capacities of understanding ('intelligence') or 'mental powers' were conceived. He traces the origin of the intellectualist legend to the circumstances that "Mathematics and the established natural sciences are the model accomplishments of human intellects. The early theorists naturally speculated upon what constituted 57

Cf. CM 264-65. But for Aristotle one cannot have intellectual knowledge without the mediation of the senses ; see De Anima 432 a 3. ( p. 65.) However, this parasitism of the former on the latter does not rob the logical independence of the 'intelligible forms' from the 'sensible forms', see ibid., bk. Ill, Ch. 4. 59 CM 27.

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the peculiar excellences of the theoretical sciences, the growth of which they had witnessed and assisted. They were predisposed to find that it was in the capacity for rigorous theory that lay the superiority of men over animals, of civilised men over barbarians, and even of the divine minds over human minds. They thus bequeathed the idea that the capacity to attain knowledge of truths was the defining property of a mind. Other human powers could be classed as mental only if they could be shown to be somehow piloted by the intellectual grasp of true propositions."60

To sum up, because it was believed that the intellect is what makes man a 'higher' animal, and because intellect is conceived of as a capacity to discern theoretical propositions, such propositions were attributed a guiding, controlling or piloting role in human activities. As a result, however, 'intelligence' came to be conceived as a capacity to apprehend propositions and all other capacities, in so far as they are human capacities, were looked upon as compound capacities having the capacity to perceive propositions as part of them. Consequently one comes to define "intelligence in terms of apprehension of truths, instead of apprehension of truths in terms of intelligence".61

Thus 'intelligence' comes to be regarded as a relation-connoting term, connoting a relation between an agent and truths or propositions, these truths or propositions themselves being looked upon in the model of objects having the logical precedence to the action of apprehending them. Thus what one achieves through reflection is conceived to be a kind of acquaintance with a second order of objects. Thus, underlying the intellectualist doctrine is the tendency to conceive reflection in the model of perception, which in turn is conceived of in a manner where objects are logically prior to the actions of apprehending them. This is how we land up with the conception of 'mental' as something characterised by directedness to some 'accusative' (the intentionality thesis), such as 'ideas', 'propositions', 'essences' or Objects'. That is, the basic relation in terms of which knowledge is to be elucidated is a non-semiotic acquaintance relationship to the objects. 'Being in the mind' or 'having ideas' are such nonsemiotic acquaintance relationships which are conceived to be logically prior to meaning-action or sign-action. That is, Cartesianism conceives mentalaction as being logically prior to meaning-action and the latter to be defined in terms of mental action rather than the mental-action in terms of the meaningaction. Ryle identifies this assumption that the notion of thinking is necessarily to be conceived in terms of the 'accusatives' as being cardinal to Cartesianism.62 60 61

62

Cf. CM 27. CM 27 See note 37 above.

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To sum up, one can identify the following three elements to be the characteristics of Cartesianism as Ryle understands the term: i) causal explanation of thinking in the place of formulating the criterion of success and failure of different kinds of thinking activity, ii) meaning as a correlation of one level of objects with another. iii) a non-semiotic acquaintance relationship to objects. 2.4 Philosophy of Mind, Category Mistake and 'Meta-Philosophy' From the above it is clear that the term 'Cartesianism' is a net encompassing a much wider catch than psychologism, which it is usually designated by; for instance, it also covers what is identified above as Platonism. In fact the immediate occasion for Ryle's master question was his dissatisfaction with the conceptions of philosophy offered by his platonising predecessors (belonging to all three tendencies) in the Analytical tradition. His early writings were, as he himself describes, motivated by a zeal to occamise away the hypostatised meaning-entities, or those schemata hypostatised into entities like 'propositions' and 'sense-data'. The role of his master-question in this occamising zeal and the circumstances of the former's origin is described by him as follows: "Behind this .. Occamizing zeal there was in me from quite early days, an ulterior concern. In the 1920's and 1930's there was welling up the problem 'what, if anything, is philosophy?'. No longer could we pretend that philosophy differed from physics, chemistry and biology by studying mental as opposed to material phenomena. We could no longer boast or confess that we were unexperimental psychologists. Hence we were beset by the temptation to look for non-mental, nonmaterial objects - or objects which should be for philosophy what beetles and butterflies were for entomology. Platonic Forms, Propositions, Intentional Objects, Logical objects, perhaps, sometimes, even Sense-data were recruited to appease our professional hankerings to have a subject-matter of our own. I had learned, chiefly from the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, that no specification of a proprietary subject-matter could yield the right answer, or even the right sort of answer to the original question 'what is philosophy?'; so my Occamizings had a positive purpose in them. Philosophical problems are problems of a special sort; they are not problems of an ordinary sort about special entities."

Thus, long before he ventures to probe the nature of philosophy explicitly, Ryle is motivated by a hunch that his predecessors who rebelled against psychologism may be sharing a common ground with it in conceiving

63

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philosophy to be an enterprise of finding out facts about a special domain open only to some special 'philosophical methods'. Ryle often speaks as if the choosing of the concept of 'mind' for full scale scrutiny in order to show what philosophy is, was accidental to the theme at hand.64 But in fact he seeks to implicate the supposition that philosophy is a factual enquiry in the crime of conceiving 'thought' in a mistaken manner and that it is because a particular category of questions concerning thought were mistaken to be questions of an entirely different category that the nature of philosophy had been obscured.65 Therefore giving a correct account of philosophy is connected with setting right this mistake, which requires a diagnosis of the mistake as well as giving a correct account of thought. This is exactly what he considers to be the task of a theory of mind and what he proposes to do in CM. One factor identified as being responsible for bringing about the confusion regarding the nature of the question concerning thinking is the natural tendency to take over the methods and models of a successful field of study for the formulation and study of all other questions. It was physics that constituted the successful science in the modern period, and any question for enquiry was cast in an analogy with physics as the model. Thus it was assumed that 'thought', though different from the entities studied by physics, must be like them - made up of some 'stuff. To quote Ryle, "The differences between the physical and mental were represented as differences inside the common framework of the categories of 'thing', 'stuff, 'attribute', 'state', 'process', 'change', 'cause' and 'effect'. Minds are things, but different sorts of things from bodies; mental processes are causes and effects, but different sorts of causes and effects from bodily movements. And so on."66

In other words, questions concerning thought were conceived to be belonging to the same category of questions as those asked in physics. As a result, questions concerning representations were conceived as questions concerning a special type of entities and a special type of causation. This mistake of conceiving one type of question as another type Ryle terms as category mistake.67 A category mistake is not of the kind that arises out of 64

Cf. 'Autobiographical' in Wood O.P. and Pitcher (ed.) (1971) p. 12. Also see A Symposium on Gilbert Ryle, Rice University Studies, Vol. 58, Mr. 3, 1972, p. 8. Cf. Ryle's diagnosis of epistemology in the Chapter, 'intellect' (especially section 4 and 7) in CM. 66 CM 20. Cf. CM section 2 of chapter one of CM (p. 17-20). One of Ryle's formulations of what a 'category mistake' is when he says that a myth "is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another". This is perhaps not precise in the sense that a definition is precise, but Ryle's way of conceptual clarification is not one of defining terms, but to elucidate through examples and gradually build up a way of understanding the term, and then use it to illuminate different conceptual tangles. This is connected with the nature of heuristic theories in contrast to nomological theories - which I will be discussing in Ch. 4.5.4. A graphic illustration of his method as well as the clarification of what he means by category mistake can be had from the following passage: "Let's

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false information, or lack thereof, and therefore, it is not amenable to correction by a supply of or substitution by a new piece of information. It is a mistake resting on the misapprehension of the logical function of certain words in our sayings or questions or, more generally, in speech. A trivial example may serve to give an idea of the nature of the category mistake as Ryle understands it: in sentences, he has the necessary skill (1) he has the necessary implements (2) the word 'has' has different functions. If we do not notice these different functions we are likely to ask such question as 'where does he store his skills?' A search for facts to answer such questions is in vain; what is needed is to show that those questions rest on a misapprehension of the function of 'has' in (1). Ryle's suggestion is that the questions (a) what does thinking consist of? and (b) what are the objects that constitute the accusatives of thinking?, mentioned in section 2.3.1, though not as obvious as in the case of 'where does he store his skills?', are equally, and in a very similar manner, illegitimate. The central focus of his elucidation of the notion of 'thinking' (the preoccupation already evident in CM, but renewed at the end of his life in his essays on thinking) is that of showing how and why questions (a) and (b) and the answers provided for them - psychologism and platonism respectively are illegitimate, and empty of content, thereby obscuring the real task of giving an account of thought. Showing the illegitimacy of a question, however, requires showing where exactly the illegitimacy creeps in, what sort of inappropriateness is indulged in and why they slip into our habit of thinking. consider two sorts of mistakes, ... one of which is philosophically of no particular interest and the other I think of very great interest. (1) If you mistake, as you well might do, a rabbit for a hare or a hare for a rabbit, there you have got two creatures that belong in fact to different species of quadruped, and they look rather alike - so you may easily think that what is a rabbit is in fact a hare, or vice versa.... (2) But there is a totally different sort of mistake. Take first of all - this is not as yet interesting - a child who comes up to my notice-board on the cliff and he sees 'Danger - keep away.' He asks innocently: 'what sort of animal is a danger? Is it rather like a kangaroo?' What sort of explanation do you give? You don't give the sort of explanation you give of the difference between a hare and a rabbit. You don't say a danger isn't an animal but a fish, or isn't an animal but a bird. You give quite a different sort of explanation. You say Oh no, a danger is a situation where the probability of something harmful happening is relatively high. So that there may be a danger of falling, as here over the cliff; or there may be danger of picking up influenza; or there may be danger of being misunderstood when you are making a public speech; etc.' There is something that the rabbit and the hare both are - quadruped, animal, creature, etc. There isn't anything that a risk and a rabbit both are - or that collision and hypotenuse both are. Drawing attention to this sort of difference, the difference between a danger and, e.g. a creature or a happening, this I would say is explaining that the terms belong to quite different categories, and not to two different species of one genus or two different members of one family. Part of what all philosophers are always trying to do, is to show that certain radical mistakes about, e.g. people's intellects or their imaginations or whatnot are not mistakes of putting things into the wrong pigeon-hole in the right desk, but trying to put a thing into a pigeon-hole in a certain desk when it doesn't want to go into that desk at all. It's not that son of thing." C. 138-9.

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In other words, showing the illegitimacy of certain questions concerning thought simultaneously involves giving an account of thought and showing at what step or juncture of presenting the task of giving an account of thought inappropriate idioms creep into our description. 2.4.1. 'Meta-Philosophy1 and Theory of Meaning A talk concerning category mistakes and the task of uncovering them brings us to face a special feature of the claims concerning category mistakes. A claim like Ryle's - that the belief that philosophy is to be elucidated by a correlative domain rests on a category-mistake - invites questions regarding the status of this claim. That is, any claim regarding the nature of the philosophical statement brings in its wake questions regarding the status of meta-philosophical discussions. If we say that a meta-philosophical claim, like any claim, is true or false about philosophy, it threatens to land us in an infinite regress concerning the status of an infinite number of reiterated levels of discourse.68 Though an infinite regress is not in itself necessarily objectionable, it introduces an opacity, especially when this apparent metaclaim introduces an alternative way of looking at the issues discussed. A claim of this sort is in fact a suggestion of a procedure rather than a descriptive claim and for procedures, justification can only be in terms of pragmatic consequences rather than by reverting to some other 'truths', as in the case of descriptive claims. The peculiarity of philosophical assertions that have both claim and suggestion aspects welded into them will be discussed in detail in part II of this book. For the moment, it is enough to say that underlying the very notion of category-mistake and the dissolution of them by uncovering them, a pragmatic suggestion to look at 'description' or 'representation' in terms of an action rather than as a unit of information is involved. Consequently, the justification for category-claims can not be of the sort of adducing some other truths from which the truth-claim or claims regarding categories and categorymistakes, in some manner or the other, are derivatively secured. But suggestions can be distinguished into reasoned ones and arbitrary ones. The predicament of infinite regress in the case of Ryle's claim that Cartesianism is based on a category-mistake can be avoided by pointing out f-Q

Cf. the section 4.5.4 for a discussion of the distinction between two types of theories, nomological and heuristic ones. Philosophy, if conceived as a nomological theory about theories, calls for conceiving theories as data, and thereby can only be an explanation about the available data, but not a normative suggestion. Even if one may use the term 'philosophy' for sthis latter sort of activity, there remains a different task of providing heuristic theories with their procedural implications. Such task is, at any rate, not of a sort of providing a meta-theory. It is useful to reserve the term 'philosophy1 for this sort of venture rather than for meta-theories of an empirical sort on theories considered as phenomena.

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that for him this claim is not of the nature of supplying information, but one of providing a reasoned suggestion as a corrective for the habituated and inherited mode of doing things; 'reasoned' in the sense that it involves arguments, 'suggestion for a different procedure of doing things' in the sense that the claim is not of the nature of information, but of the nature of a pragmatically testable alternative procedure. "Philosophy", Ryle avers, "is the replacement of the category-habits by category-disciplines",69 the word 'discipline' having the implication that it is cultivated by seeing a purpose in it. To see a purpose, however, is to have arguments for its cultivation. But the claim is not of the nature of information, and so one cannot argue for its acceptance by providing evidence or counter-evidence. Nor can one provide arguments of the sort that it can be deductively proved. The characteristic feature of both these sorts of arguments is that the argument and what it is an argument for are separable from each other.70 In the case of a claim such as that something rests on a category mistake, on the other hand, arguing for the claim involves an explication of it such that the elaboration of the claim and the arguments for it are not separable from each other. In other words, the argument is not meant to prove the truth or falsity of the claim made, but rather to make the claim (and also the 'rightness' of the claim - in a sense to be specified later) understandable. This demarcation of the function of arguments to make a claim understandable from their function to prove the truth or falsity of a claim, can be identified as the niche where Ryle's interest in theory of philosophy hooks up with the theories of meaning. One of the features identified with Cartesianism was the name theory of meaning, or the assumption that meaning is a matter of one object standing for another object. Ryle diagnoses the name theory as a consequence of separating the theory of meaning from the theory of logic in the sense of the theory of argumentation. Ryle traces the lineage of his conception of philosophy from the first step taken by Frege and Russell in detaching the notion of meaning from that of naming, and reattaching it to the notion of saying.71 Whereas Frege made the point that the meaning of an expression is the function of that expression in the sentence, and that therefore the understanding of a sentence is prior to discerning the meaning of the expressions that the sentence is constituted of, Russell's 'theory of types' is based upon a realisation that the notion of meaning is "at least in certain crucial contexts, the obverse of the notion of the non-sensical".72 Ryle 69 70

CM 10.

Cf. Taking sides in Philosophy' (153-69) and 'Proofs in Philosophy' (319- 25) in CPU. The word 'argument' is in fact equivocal. It may mean the kind of argument meant to establish some truth, or of the sort meant to show the nature of the implication threads constituting a differentiating practice. See chapter 6 for an elaboration. 71 CPU 363 72 CPU 363

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saw these moves as steps in the direction of ending the assumption that the analysis of a thought is a question of arriving at the ultimate nameables it consists of, and making a beginning in the direction of conceiving analysis as a matter of making a thought understandable through displaying its interconnections internally to its "elements" and externally to other thoughts. The latter is what logic is supposed to do. Thus, setting forth an argument and clarifying the meaning are not separate tasks. To say what it is to clarify the meaning, i.e., to make someone understand something, is the same as to say what it is to argue. Thus theory of meaning and theory of logic (in the sense of a theory of argumentation) are one. Thus, Ryle's interest in the theory of meaning is not only due to the fact that his immediate platonising predecessors hypostatised a realm of meaningentities, but also, because of, a hunch that underpinning the self-image of philosophy as a science of a special realm of entities, there may be a particular conception of how we understand the assertions and how expressions derive their meaning. 73 [Among other things, he attacks the assumption that the meaning of an expression is the object named by it ('name theory of meaning') and Husserl's notion of Ego as the provider of 'meanings'.] As elaborated earlier, that conception makes the non-semiotic presentation relation the basis of understanding and therefore makes it possible to separate the way of giving an account of meaning from the way of giving an account of an argument. 2.5 Strategic and Paradigmatic Nature of the Theme of 'the Concept of Mind' To come back to the specific claim, viz. that the belief philosophy is to be elucidated by reference to a correlative domain, is a category mistake. This claim has a peculiar feature such that explicating it is simultaneously showing - what the philosophical mistake is like,

In "The theory of Meaning' (CPU p. 350-72) Ryle discusses the question, as he himself says, "from what sorts of interests,.., do we come to ask" such questions as '"What is it for an expression to have meaning?'". He identifies two of the interests, which he calls 'the theory of logic' and 'the theory of philosophy' (CPU 351), and with regard to the latter identifies three influences that "were chiefly responsible for the collapse of the assumption that doing philosophy, in our sense, is of a piece with doing natural science or at least of a piece with doing mental science or psychology." CPU 367. The three influences that were identified were: (i) the Frege-Russell-Husserl interest in saving mathematics from the "combined empiricism and psychologism of the school of John Stuart Mill", (ii) the yielding of the ground by "introspective psychology itself to ... experimental, laboratory psychology", and (iii) the assertion by Brentano that it is "an apriori principle of psychology itself, that it is of the essence of mental states and processes that they are «/objects or contents." All three tendencies ended up, according to Ryle, on the one hand realising that philosophy is not a piece with mental science, but on the other inventing a third realm of 'meanings' different from the realms of mental and physical. He further traces the collapse of the denotationist theory of meaning in the hands of Russell and Wittgenstein that led to the ultimate collapse of the notion of philosophy as investigating this third realm. Cf. CPU 365-71

Strategic and paradigmatic nature of the theme of 'the concept of mind'

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- what mistake results in conceiving philosophy as an enquiry into a special realm like that of 'mental1 or 'platonic' entities, - what philosophy is. Thus, here an explication of the claim that a particular confusion obscures the nature of philosophical activity is simultaneously a diagnosis of that confusion and a demonstration of what philosophy is. Ryle's contention is that giving an account of thinking action is not one of giving a factual description, but rather one of elaborating the conditions of success and failure of a representational doing (say of using a concept 'planet' in a theory-constructing activity). If, as explained earlier, the task of providing a theory of mind is a task of making the intelligibility of actions intelligible, say for instance the intelligibility of the action of thinking with the concept of 'planet' intelligible, then, accomplishing the phenomenological tasks is exactly what providing a theory of mind is. Cartesianism mistakes this task as that of giving causal accounts of processes of thinking, and believes to have succeeded in it by providing structural descriptions of products of thinking as if they are the elements and causal processes of thinking. Thus correcting the mistake in the field of philosophy of mind, and showing what it is to make understanding understandable, requires disentangling the confusions between logical and phenomenological questions, showing the difference and the inter-relation between these two kinds of questions concerning the concepts. The same thing needs to be accomplished in order to provide a theory of philosophy in opposition to the inherited mistaken theories of it. The chief mistake of Cartesianism, of both 'mental science' variety and 'platonist' variety', is to have conceived reflection on concepts and theories to be the investigation of a domain. Ryle's main contention against such a view is that to make our questions or concepts and theories understandable is not a task of providing information about a domain. To show this is to show the distinction and interrelation between two types of questions regarding concepts and theories, or more generally, those means with which we think and communicate about the world. Thus, what is obscured by Cartesianism is, simultaneously, the tasks of making (a) 'understanding' understandable, and (b) 'philosophy' understandable, and consequently, overcoming this obscurity is one and the same task. This brings to the choice made in order to illustrate what philosophy is, viz. the concept of 'mind', both a strategic and a paradigmatic dimension, - strategic, because the mistake of conceiving 'thought' as a designation of a realm lies at the root of the obscurity, which obliterates the distinctive features of philosophic investigation; - and paradigmatic, because to show that thought does not designate a realm of facts is to show what philosophy is.

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'The Concept of Mind' (CM) thus exposes the category mistake at the root of the criticised conception of philosophy, and in so exposing the mistake shows the nature of philosophical activity.

3. Science and Method The Genesis and Structure of Historical Cartesianism. To recall the results of the previous chapter, the motivating question for Kyle's philosophical activity is: how to conceive the human capacity for reflection and how to characterise what is achieved by its exercise? The main contention against the philosophical tradition is that it conceived the activity of reflection as an acquaintance with a special sort of objects, thus leading one to search in vain for objects that are open to acquaintance only in reflection. This is the result of a framework of thinking that assigns logical priority to objects over actions and defines the latter in terms of a relation of agents to different sorts of objects. This chapter aims to support this contention by way of historical evidence. The key heuristic means for doing this can be found in Ryle's remarks on 'intellect' and the 'intellectualist doctrine'. As mentioned already, 'intellect' as a theme originated in Aristotle as a result of a focus on identifying the capacity that demarcates humans from other animals. One of Ryle's suggestions is that 'intellect' was conceived in analogy to the eye; just as a sense-organ has a sense-specific element corresponding to it, similarly it was thought that corresponding to intellect there must be some specific element. Secondly, the capacity that demarcates human beings was equated with academic capacities, especially those of building theories. Thirdly, Cartesianism is said to be the result of overlooking the distinction between theory-constructing and theoryusing or theory-exposition activities, and mistaking the characteristics of didactic discourse for the characteristics of theory-constructing (i.e. enquiry) activity and thus taking the characteristics of didactic discourse as the model for theorising about 'learning', 'invention' and 'discovery'. These three suggestions can be exploited for a historical reconstruction of the way in which a particular framework of questions emerged in the modern period from Aristotle's conception of the forms defining the natural kinds as the intellect-specific elements. Aristotle distinguishes the exercise of intellect into that concerning things that are made on the one hand and that concerning things that are not made but grow by themselves, on the other. For him science (or the original Greek word episteme) is the didactic presentation of the results of the latter sort of thinking, i.e. science is the didactic presentation of forms defining natural kinds. Further, such a presentation is for him the 'highest1 exercise of 'knowing why' achievable by human beings and also that which

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they can and ought to strive for. In the following I will both elaborate on this Aristotelian framework and build a narrative of how changes wrought on that framework resulted in the propositional model of knowledge. The narration shall accomplish both a reconstruction of the events in the history of ideas and support such a reconstruction through citing textual evidence from the thinkers of the modern period. Without claiming any originality to the proposed text-interpretations, an attempt will nevertheless be made to sketch a novel way of looking at the 17th century concept of 'idea' and the conception of science accompanying its use. The narrative is meant to bring out both the genesis of a particular framework of thinking and also the features of that framework, and it will show that the three characteristics identified to be the features of Cartesianism in the last chapter are in fact the features of a historically identifiable line of thinking. Especially, the significance of Ryle's claim that Cartesianism defines knowledge in terms of the accusatives and conceives reflection on the model of perception will be brought home by elucidating the emergence of a belief in the 17th century that the method is the route to an errorless source of knowledge. 3.1 Demarcating Knowledge from Opinion Let me begin by focusing on certain assumptions easily discernible in the works of Descartes and Locke, two of the thinkers considered to have set the parameters of philosophical thinking in the modern period. Descartes begins his Meditations with these innocuous looking words: "It is some time ago now since I perceived that, from my earliest years, I had accepted many false opinions as being true, and that what I had since based on such insecure principles could only be most doubtful and uncertain; so that I had to undertake seriously once in my life to rid myself of all opinions I had adopted up to then, and to begin afresh from the foundations, if I wished to establish something firm and constant in sciences. ...

This project of 'ridding oneself of all opinions' and 'beginning afresh from foundations' in order to get rid of the 'the doubtful and the uncertain' is a recurring theme in Modern philosophy. In a different style, but thematically akin, Locke announces the programme of his work, An Essay concerning Human Understanding as that of searching "out the Bounds between Opinion and Knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things, whereof we have no certain Knowledge, we ought to regulate our Assent, and moderate our perswasions. In Order whereonto, I shall pursue this following Method.

1

BC. p. 95

Demarcating Knowledge from Opinion

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First, I shall enquire into the Original of those Ideas, Notions, or whatever else you please to call them, which a Man observes, and is conscious to himself he has in his Mind; and the ways whereby the Understanding comes to be furnished with them. Secondly, I shall endeavour to shew, what Knowledge the Understanding hath by those Ideas; and the Certainty, Evidence, and Extent of it. Thirdly, I shall make some Enquiry into the Nature and Grounds of Faith, or Opinion: whereby I mean that Assent, which we give to any Proposition as true, or whose Truth yet we have no certain Knowledge: And here we shall have Occasion to examine the Reasons and Degrees of Assent. "^ In this passage two assumptions underlying the programme of drawing a demarcation between opinion and knowledge become explicit: (i) 'something in the mind' is that through which we can have knowledge, (ii) knowledge as well as belief can be analysed in terms of proposition and the assent accorded to it. This second assumption receives the following formulation by Descartes: "We possess only two modes of thinking: the perception of the intellect and the operation of the will. ... Making a judgement requires not only the intellect but also the will. In order to make a judgement, the intellect is of course required since, in the case of something which we do not in any way perceive, there is no judgement we can make. But the will is also required so that, once something is perceived in some manner, our assent may then be given."^ In other words, 'judgement' is the result of giving or withholding assent to the 'perception of intellect'. This latter notion will be scrutinised in detail later at an appropriate occassion; what is of immediate concern now is to note a consequence of this view of judgement, a consequence explicitly formulated by Descartes: "We fall into error only when we make judgements about things which we have not sufficiently perceived (i.e. perceived intellectually) Now when we perceive something, so long as we do not make any assertion or denial about it, we clearly avoid error. And we equally avoid error when we confine our assertions or denials to what we clearly and distinctly perceive ... Error

;~ Human Understanding, p. 44 3 CSM p. 171; also see HR vol.1. 445-6, and p. 232-35. Whereas the former translation uses the term 'perception of the intellect', HR translation uses the term 'perception of understanding'. Since the term 'Understanding' has in English the connotation 'intellect' (as in the title of Locke's book Human understanding) I will use these terms interchangeably when I discuss Descartes' conceptions.

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arises only when, ..., we make a judgement about something even though we do not have an accurate perception of it."4 That is, error is not due to incorrect apprehension but rather due to an improper exercise of will in giving assent to what is perceived by the intellect. I label this assumption - that there is an error-free accessibility to something as the bearer of our knowledge - the 'prepositional model of knowledge'. (The 'idea' is conceived as such a bearer, the access to which cannot be considered as subject to error). It is in accordance with this model that the task of finding an adequate criterion to give assent to propositions becomes urgent. At first sight the Locke-Descartes programme of demarcating knowledge from opinion appears obvious and compelling. On closer scrutiny, however, we notice that the apparent simplicity and innocuous diction of both the quoted passages conceal the fact that the terminology and the distinctions with which the project is formulated are rooted in an intellectual tradition originating in Aristotle. It is worthwhile emphasising that 'beginning afresh from foundations' is thought to be necessary to establish 'scientific knowledge' and this stands in contrast to Opinions'. This is a contrast picked out of a tradition continuing from Aristotle through the middle ages. The full title of 'Meditations' is 'Meditations on the first Philosophy in which the existence of God and the real distinction between the soul and the body of man are demonstrated'. Both 'first philosophy' and 'demonstration' are the notions of Aristotle continuing in the middle ages till Descartes5. Similarly, attention can be drawn to the term 'principle' in Descartes' passage and Original of those Ideas' in Locke's passage. When considered with a background of familiarity with the Aristotelian literature, these terms betray a rootedness in that tradition, and the sense of obviousness attached to them vanishes. Of course, the continuity of terminology does not necessarily mean the identity of the assumptions underlying them; the latter had certainly changed by the time Descartes and Locke were writing. But without getting some idea of the original notions and their transmutations in the hands of the 17th century philosophers, it is impossible to understand properly the problems that engaged these thinkers. An ideal focus for discussing such transmutations is Hobbes, a contemporary of Descartes. While explicating the notion of scientific CSMp.171 It is a common place truism to say that the birth of modern philosophy is closely associated with the birth of the science of experimental physics in the 17th century. But what were the conceptual distinctions inherited, within the context of which experimental physics was conceived? The influential book, Randall J.H. (1961), has shown that experimental physics owes a lot to an Aristotelian school of Medicine in Padua. (This, incidentally, gives us grounds for supposing that the medical analogy chosen by Hobbes in his Leviathan, to be discussed further below in this chapter, is not accidental.) Also Cf. Serene E., 'Demonstrative Science' (p. 496-518), see especially p. 505 and footnote 7 on that page; James A, Weisheipel, O.P. 'The Interpretation of Aristotle's physics and the science of motion' (p. 521-36), both in: Norman Kretzmann et al (1982).

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knowledge he explicitly refers to two terms, hoti and dihoti, from Aristotle's Metaphysics. "Philosophy is the knowledge we acquire, by true ratiocination, of appearances or apparent effects, from the knowledge we have of some possible production or generation of the same; and of such production, as has been or may be, from the knowledge we have of the effects. Method, therefore, in the study of philosophy, is the shortest way of finding out effects by their known causes, or of causes by their known effects. But we are then said to know any effect, when we know there be causes of the same, and in what subject they produce that effect, and in what manner they work the same. And this is the science of causes, or as they call it, of the dihoti. All other science, which is called hoti, is either perception by sense, or imagination, or memory remaining after such perception."^

At the outset, it has to be mentioned that here the word 'philosophy' is interchangeable with 'scientific knowledge' or 'scientia' which in turn is the Latin translation of Aristotle's term 'episteme'. A contrast between hoti and dihoti as well as between empeiria and episteme is made by Aristotle in the beginning of his Metaphysics, where he distinguishes different grades of abilities attributable to animals and human beings. "The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but human race lives also by art and reasonings. And from memory experience (empeiria) is produced in men; for many memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience (empeiria); .. And art (technai) arises, when from many notions gained by experience an universal judgement about similar objects is produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience (empeiria); but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fever, - this is a matter of art (technai). ... ... we suppose artists (technitai) to be wiser than men of experience (empeiroi) ...; and this because the former know the cause (aitia), but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so (to hoti), but do not know why (di hoti), while the others know the 'why' (di hoti) and the cause (aitia). Hence we think that the master workers in each craft are more honourable ... are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of things that are done ...; thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes. And in general it is a sign of man who knows, that he can teach, and therefore we think art more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of experience cannot."7

6 7

Of Method' in EW. vol I. (65-90) see p. 65-6. Metaphysics 981 a 1-10 and 981 a 20 - 981 b 10. in: Aristotle Reader, p. 255-6.

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We find here Aristotle using the terms mentioned by Hobbes to demarcate a capacity, the knowing why (dihoti), from a 'lower' capacity, knowing that (hoti). That they are conceived as capacities and not as a possession of propositions becomes evident by the fact that Aristotle makes the differentiation between them by indicating what the respective type of knowledge makes one capable of doing: whereas knowing that makes one capable of identifying one individual's sickness as similar to that of another, knowing why makes one capable of identifying the natures of sickness as well as of the individuals having it. The former is equated with a capacity to identify the individual's disease and cure him and the latter with a capacity to 'give reasons', which in turn is identified as a capacity to teach. Thus Aristotle's contrast is between men of experience and men who can teach. Men of experience are not conceived as possessing certain amount of data, but rather as having a particular kind of orientation. So we are entitled to conclude that in demarcating dihoti from hoti Aristotle is concerned with specifying the theoretical capacity in contrast to the capacity to handle things in daily life. What Hobbes terms as 'knowledge we acquire by true ratiocination' (hereonwards this will be referred to as 'ratiocinative knowledge') is in fact a reference to Aristotle's 'Knowing why'. However, there is an important difference. Whereas Aristotle talks of 'knowing why' as an attribute of a person, Hobbes uses 'ratiocinative knowledge' as a substantive. On the face of it, this is an inconsequential difference - one talks of the capacity and the other of the result of exercising this capacity - a mere difference in emphasis. In fact it embodies a substantial difference in how the relation of 'method' to 'scientific knowledge' is conceived. Aristotle's 'dihoti' is knowing the reasons in the sense of a capacity to teach in terms of 'principles' or/and 'causes'; it is the possession of a 'general' that makes one capable of a methodical presentation. Thus, in Aristotle, method is connected with knowing why as a way of teaching with the theory-possessing that makes that teaching possible. In Hobbes, on the other hand, the method is connected with 'ratiocinative knowledge' as a way of discovering with something that is discovered. I will later sketch the development of this crucial difference in detail by comparing passages from Aristotle with Hobbes' assertions on method - which form almost a running commentary on Aristotle. But, for the moment, it is enough to point out that Hobbes includes in the definition of 'ratiocinative knowledge' not merely the knowing of 'appearances' (or to use a later term, 'effects') through 'causes', but also of the knowing of 'causes' through 'effects'. Aristotle, on the other hand, describes the 'knowing why' as knowing a thing in terms of its 'causes' or 'principle'. That is, whereas Aristotle focuses on a capacity to give reasons, Hobbes focuses on the result of reasoning - either from 'general' to 'particular' or from 'particular' to 'general', - thereby driving himself to a model of possessing information arrived at by reasoning.

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3.2 Method of Teaching vs. Method of Discovery Of course, one can suggest that it is more appropriate to compare 'ratiocinative knowledge' to 'episteme' instead of to 'dihoti', since 'episteme' too is the result of exercising a method. However, such a comparison would make the divergence between Aristotle and Hobbes even more clear. In the beginning of Aristotle's Post. Analytics - the treatise considered as dealing with Aristotle's method of demonstration - we find it asserted that "All teaching and all intellectual learning come about from already existing knowledge."8 Hobbes almost quotes this while beginning his discussion of method: "it is common to all sorts of method that it proceeds from known things to unknown." 9 But it is significant that whereas in Aristotle the context is that of teaching and learning, in Hobbes the assertion is predominantly connected with investigation. That is, whereas 'method1 as understood by Hobbes has a predominantly investigative function, the notion of 'episteme' came into being in the course of specifying a teaching method. 3.2.1 Aristotle's Order of Knowledge1 and Order of Nature' This difference between episteme as the result of methodical presentation and 'ratiocinative knowledge' as the result of enquiry becomes evident if we look into another of Hobbes' references to Aristotle: Hobbes connects his discussion of method with another distinction Aristotle makes - that between 'more known to us' and 'more known to nature': "... In any knowledge of the holi or anything is, the beginning of our search is from the whole idea; and contrarily, in our knowledge of the dihoti, or of the causes of anything, that is, in the sciences, we have more knowledge of the causes of the part than of the whole. ... And this is the meaning of that common saying, namely that some things are more known to us, others more known to nature; for I do not think that they, which so distinguish, mean that something that is known to nature is known to no man; and therefore, by those things that are more known to us, we are to understand things we take notice of by our senses, and by more known to nature, those we acquire the knowledge of by reason; for in this sense it is, that the whole, that is, those things that have universal names, (which, for brevity's sake, I call universal) are more known to us than the parts, that is, such things as have names less universal (which I therefore call singular); and the causes of the parts are more known to nature than the cause of the whole; that is, universals than singulars." 10

Post. Analytics 71 a. in: Aristotle Reader, p.39. Post. Analytics 71 a. in: Aristotle Reader, p.39. 10 EW. vol. I p. 67-8

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At a first reading one cannot help thinking that the above echoes the following passage from Aristotle: "Things are prior and more familiar in two ways; for it is not the same to be prior by nature and prior in relation to us. I call prior and more familiar in relation to us what is nearer to perception, prior and more familiar simpliciter what is further away. What is most universal is furthest away, and the particulars are nearest; and these are opposite to each other." The apparent agreement of the two passages, however, conceals a crucial difference. Corresponding to the two orders of priority - 'prior in relation to us' and 'prior in relation to nature1 - Aristotle conceives two different inference modes - those starting from 'principles' and those starting from Opinions' (endoxa).12 These in turn are meant to specify two functionally differing methods. Principles are asserted to be prior in relation to nature. That is, they are logically prior in the system of truths about any domain. Episteme is conceived as representation of 'the order of nature', the principles governing the domain coming at the top and the other truths occurring in descending order. This is also meant as the order of didactic discourse. 'Prior in relation to us' are 'sense-perceptions' and Opinions' which in the Order of nature' are conceived to be the last. Dialectical deduction is supposed to start from the level of Opinions' and arrive at the principles. That is, the Order of our knowledge' in contrast to the order of nature ascends from opinions and senseperception to the level of principles. This is identified by the medieval Aristotelians as the method of investigation13. That is, enquiry in contrast to teaching begins with what is 'familiar to us' and ascends to what is 'familiar in nature' 14 . 3.2.2 Dialectical Deduction One has to be careful not to confuse the order of knowledge - the senseperception to principles - with the procedure of 'induction'. For one thing, the corresponding method is explicitly mentioned to be one of dialectical deduction and not 'epagoge' - the notion ancestral to induction. The latter is mentioned elsewhere as a teaching method, a method of familiarising the student with a 'General' through the help of examples. It is a method of 1

' Cf. Post. Analytics (72 a 1-5) in: Aristotle Reader, p. 41. Cf. Topics (Book I ch. 1 & 2. 100 a to 101 b in: Aristotle Reader, p. 60-2. Cf. Randall J.H., 'The Development of scientific method in the School of Padua' in: Randall J.H. ..(1961). 14 Cf. Post. Analytics 71 b 30 - 72 a 5. and Topics Book I ch. 1 & 2. 100 a to 101 b. In Aristotle's scheme the term 'scientific knowledge' or 'episteme' is reserved for the knowledge of 'nature' (physis), whereas the knowledge required for doing something (as procedures or as skills) is considered as 'fechne' or 'artes'. 12

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familiarising someone with the already available principle. Discovering the principle, on the other hand, is a process of inventing something that is not yet available. Therefore epagoge cannot be of any use for that purpose, since the principle has to be first constructed15. Secondly, unlike during the modern period, sense-perception is not conceived here as delivering the knowledge of the singular or the individual, and therefore arriving at principles is not a process of ascending from the singular to the general. When Hobbes asserts that what is given in sense is prior in relation to us, it appears that he is paraphrasing the text of Post. Analytic 72a 1-5. However, one has to remember that for Hobbes, investigation from sense is something that can be conducted individually. Though in Hobbes there is no explicit mentioning of the sense-impression being individually specific, later thinkers, make out of this that what is apprehended through sense is individual or singular. In Aristotle, however, though knowledge is said to begin with 'sensation' or sense-perception, this sense-perception has to be understood as equivalent to endoxa and that in turn as equivalent to pathemata - the socially shared object-schema. This equation is absent in the modern period. One may be tempted to interpret Aristotle's 'accepted opinions' as commonsense theories (the common sense presentation). However, as indicated earlier, in Aristotle knowledge is conceived as capacities and not as 'knowing that something is the case'. Therefore, it is more appropriate to conceive the 'accepted opinions' as a form of knowing how, as one's capacity to conduct in the world. This understanding can also account for the fact that 'accepted opinions' are expressible as different propositions that are shown to be problematic or contradictory in the process of dialectical procedure16. The 'dialectical deduction' is meant to answer the question 'how to make the concepts and principles of science available?' But the significance of this question has to be dissociated from the modern day associations with the 1

This also explains why the epagoge does not find a place in Aristotle's enumeration of the inference modes. Unlike its modem-day heir, 'induction', it is not conceived as the inference-mode; it is mentioned in the context of specifying a teaching method - a method of familiarising the student with a 'General' through examples. Cf. v.Fritz, (1964) Heft 5. Unlike syllogism - which is also a teaching method - epagoge does not involve any argumentation. Perhaps one has to further mention that syllogism as a mode of showing has to be distinguished from the 'apodeixis which involves both content & form; it is what constitutes Aristotle's di hoti, or rather the result of exercising it - the episteme. The 'endoxa' differs from Opinion' as it occurs in Descartes' 'meditations'. In Descartes the Opinions' are the candidates for the title of truth: his method of doubt, as also the contemporary 'proof procedures', are meant as excluding procedures in the sense that both of them are meant to select one against another Opinion' as the true one. Aristotle's procedure, in contrast, is a refining procedure: It is a procedure of 'inventing truths' in the sense of a procedure for constructing (i.e. 'making') a principle, whicli when correctly followed, by that very following confers on the resultant principles the status of "being true'. In contrast, the procedure to exclude falsehoods, as Descartes conceives his method of doubt, is a procedure of 'discovering' truth in the sense that the procedure only ensures the choice of only what is true.

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contrast between 'context of discovery' and 'context of justification': unlike in the latter, in Aristotle, the 'inventive' procedure is specified in contradistinction to 'teaching' and not to 'proof. The Aristotelian 'knowing why' is explained as a 'capacity to give reasons', but 'giving reasons' is not to be taken here as giving 'justificatory grounds' as we understand it today; Aristotle's 'demonstration' (apodeixis) is not meant to 'prove' the proposition occurring as conclusion in the syllogism, but rather to induce the student to 'see' (intellectually, in his 'mental eye' so to speak) the principle and its connection to subordinate truths, and thereby giving an insight into the nature of things; it gives one in some way the insight why something is the case, in the sense of helping one to organise the instances under general principles. The knowing why is not knowing the truth of the proposition, but rather knowing the principles that are at work resulting in something being the case17. The element of justification' is in fact part of the inventive procedure itself: dialectic is an inventive procedure that simultaneously justifies the principles arrived at thereby, i.e. 'invention' - quite unlike what we are accustomed to understand by that term - is understood not in the sense of hypothesis, arbitrary and accidentally arrived at, of which the 'appropriateness of fit' has to be shown independently of formulating it. The principles are defined as 'necessarily true', but this epithet is applied to the principles "because one cannot understand what is not the case"18 i.e. one cannot understand what it is to be the case for a principle not to hold. In other words, what makes a principle "necessarily true" is that in its case understanding it and seeing the validity of it are not separable. Consequently the 'trueness' of the principle has to be conceived in terms of the procedure followed for arriving at an understanding of it, rather than through a reference to some notion of a level of acquaintance. Whereas the distinction, context of discovery and context of justification, separate the meaning aspect from the justification aspect, 'dialectical deduction' is conceived in such a way that it is both a method of making the 'principle' 'understandable' and 'justifiable1, i.e. that of showing the meaning as well as the validity of it. To sum up, if we take Aristotle's enumeration of the kinds of inference modes in the beginning of Topics, in conjunction with his distinction between the order of nature and order of knowledge in Posterior Analytics, it appears that for Aristotle, the teaching method follows the order of nature, but investigation follows a different path. This was canonised in the middle ages as two different parts of Aristotle's logic - the logic that deals with the syllogism and the logic that deals with the invention of principles. St. 17

To put it another way - in terms of the distinction to be made in ch. 5 - the 'demonstration' is not meant as a communicative aspect; rather the object- or signification-aspect itself. 18 Cf. Post. Analytics 71 b 20-5

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Augustine's terms, pars demonstrative! and pars inventiva, bear evidence to this 19 . This clear demarcation of the procedure of gaining the concepts & principles from that of science as presentation ('Science' presented in the 'the order of nature') i.e. between method of investigation and method of teaching is no more to be found in Hobbes. On the contrary, he asserts that "... Teaching is nothing but leading the mind of him we teach, to the knowledge of our inventions, in that track by which we attained the same with our own mind; therefore the same method that served for our invention, will serve also for demonstration for others."20

Hobbes does put forward two kinds of methods, the resolution and the composition, the latter being the same as Aristotle's demonstration. But, for him, the distinction between these two has nothing to do with the distinction between investigating and teaching. In fact the notion of teaching method gets subordinated to that of investigating, such that the application of the method of resolution or the method of composition are described as purely dependent upon the nature of the question pursued or the domain about which investigation or teaching takes place21. But what Aristotle and Aristotelians conceived as investigating method, the dialectical deduction, was seen as discredited. However, the aspect of Aristotelian conception of investigative method that it has to produce new knowledge in such a way that it is justified at the same time - continues to be part of the notion of investigative method in Hobbes and other thinkers of the 17th century. To appreciate the significance of this, we have to remember that the 'discovery' for which the Aristotelians conceived the dialectics as a method was that of scientific principles, and this has to be distinguished from the 'discovery' of new facts as we are wont to associate that word today. For Hobbes and other thinkers of the 17th century, on the other hand, even though they were also talking of discovery of principles as will be shown below in section 3.5.1, they considered the discovery of scientific principles as the discovery of facts of mechanisms underlying the natural effects. As a result, the search for a method that simultaneously justifies and is productive of new knowledge, leads them to conceive the method as something that leads one to an errorless source of facts.

[Q

This terminology continues till Leibniz, who also uses the term 'ars inveniendi' and 'are iudicandi' to refer to these two methods 20 EW. vol I 80 This has to be qualified: in the case of teaching universal principles demonstration method has no place, "because they are principles, (they) cannot be demonstrated; and seeing they are known by nature,... they need no demonstration, though they need explication" Ibid p. 81.

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3.2.3 Search for an Alternative to Dialectical Deduction This notion of a method that simultaneously discovers and justifies the principles was the starting point of the debate about method in the Renaissance and in the 17th century. However, by this time, the dissatisfaction with mediaeval Aristotelianism had come to equate dialectical method with eristic arguments, and there was a wide-spread belief that the Aristotelian method of discovery is merely one of disputation. Thus the notion of a procedure of stepping from what is prior in us - i.e. the Opinions' - to what is prior in nature - i.e. the principles - was called into question. Formulating an alternative to it was one of the important aims pursued by the philosophers in the modern period. Especially important for them was the method to arrive at those principles that are considered as common to all disciplines - i.e. those of first philosophy. The method that was retained from Aristotle - and looked upon as paradigmatic for their own formulations - was that of demonstration. However, this latter was not created for the purpose of discovery; and this fact was realised early on. Hobbes himself thinks that the demonstrative method could be useful for discovery.22 This is because he thinks that the method for teaching is the same as that of discovering. Descartes, on the other hand, acknowledges that demonstration is meant for teaching and can not be of use for discovery of principles. For instance, after narrating his resolve and plan of establishing science on a secure foundation, he says that the methods of logic, geometrical analysis and algebra are of no use for his purposes, and says further with reference to the methods of logic (an obvious reference to conceptions of Posterior Analytics), "its syllogisms and most of its other precepts serve to explain more to others what one already knows... than to learn anything new." ^

The same sentiment is expressed later in the century by Locke. He says that Maxims (the reference is to the principles through which demonstration takes place) "are not of use to help men forewards in the advancement of sciences or new discoveries of yet unknown truths. ... Would those who have these traditional admiration of these propositions ... but distinguish between the method of acquiring knowledge, and of communicating it, between the method of raising any science and that of teaching it to others as far as it is advanced, they would see that But, for the discovery of ultimate principles, Hobbes suggests that the method is that of resolution or analysis. Compositive or demonstrative method, along with resolutive method, is useful for the discovery of principles of 'determined appearance' i.e. for the discovery of principles that have a limited explanatory function (in contrast with universal principles, which are meant to apply to the phenomena as a whole), explaining specific domains "such as of light, of heat or gravity" etc. Cf. ibid ,J).68. ίΛ Cf. Discourse on method, discourse 2, in BC p. 40.

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those general maxims were not the foundations on which the first discoveries raised their admirable structures, nor the keys that unlocked and opened those secrets of knowledge. Though afterwards, when schools were erected and Sciences had their Professors to teach what others had found out, i.e. laid out certain propositions which were self-evident, or to be received for true, which being settled in the minds of their scholars as unquestionable verities, they on occasions made use of, to convince Them of truths in particular instances, that were not so familiar to their Minds as those general axioms which had before been inculcated to them and carefully settled in their Mind."^4

3.3 Aristotle and the Search for a Context-Invariant

Knowledge

Before considering the suggestions of 17th century thinkers for an alternative to dialectica.1 deduction, it is necessary to scrutinise the very notion of 'scientific principle' these thinkers were very much after25. In doing this I will also push our narrative in another direction. So far, I have concentrated on the divergence between the Aristotelian and modern frameworks of distinctions, but now it is time to say something on the source, as well as the route, through which t;he modern framework emerged from the Aristotelian one. My suggestion is that the seed of the propositional model lies in a certain aspect of Aristotle's conception. We saw earlier that the dialectical deduction is a method of arriving at a proposition achieving thereby both the understanding and validation of it. Thus it is conceived, partly at least, as an activity of making things understandable. But, for Aristotle, the principles arrived at by dialectical deduction are also the "essences" defining the natural kinds. This gives to the activity of making something understandable a character of establishing an object-acquaintance. Thus, even though Aristotle conceives knowledge as a capacity, the way the capacity is conceived is such that objects are given a logical priority over actions. In the following I will elaborate this thesis by going back to Aristotle's conception of the intellect and a human life-ideal that ensues, in his view, from that conception.

Human understanding Book IV ch. vii. 11 p.559 Principle' or 'arche' means the Origin' or the 'beginning'. In the case of modern thinkers, even though the idea of justification in the sense of proof may not have been formulated yet in the 17th century as argued by Hacking H. (cf. his 'Proof and eternal truths: Descartes and Leibniz, p. 169-80, in: Gaukroger, S. (ed.) (1980), nevertheless, the beginning for such a perspective was made in that the 'principle' was conceived as an 'idea' through the mediation of which objects are to be known; i.e. a separation of the sign and the object was made. In Aristotle, on the other hand, the question was about the 'principle' of genesis of a thing, where sign and object were not separated. In Aristotle knowledge is a capacity, and it is a knowing how to actualise - on the one hand of the objects that have grown by themselves, and, on the other, the objects that are made. In actualising the things that grow by themselves, the intellect becomes the object in its pure form. It is this special doctrine that is at the root of the development of the notion of 'idea' later. This will be argued further down in 3.5.4.

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3.3.1 The 'Intellect': 'Theoria1 vs. 'Knowledge is Power' Before resuming the historical narrative a minor clarification is in order. In chapter 2, I used the terms 'intelligence' and 'intellect' interchangeably. Ryle, however, uses them differently: he uses 'intelligence' to refer to those features specific to human beings and 'intellect' to those capacities exhibited in academic achievements such as building and evaluating theories26. His main criticism of the tradition is that it equates intelligence with academic capacities, i.e. it equates the question 'what makes for the demarcation of human beings from other animals?' with the question 'what makes for intellectual action?' or 'what makes for academic capacities?'. But how is academic activity, i.e. the activity of building and evaluating theories, conceived by the philosophical tradition? Here again let me begin with an innocuous-looking passage. Regarding the ends of philosophy Hobbes writes: "The end or scope of Philosophy is, that we may make use to our benefit of effects formerly seen; or that by application of bodies to one another, we may produce the like effects of those we conceive in our mind, as far forth as matter, strength and industry will permit, for the commodity of human life. For the inward glory and triumph of mind that man may have for the mastering of some difficult and doubtful matter, or for the discovery of some hidden truth, is not so much worth the pains of the study of Philosophy requires. ... The end of knowledge is power; ... the scope of all speculation is the performance of some action, or the thing to be done."27

What is it that Hobbes is railing against when he says "For the inward glory and triumph of mind that man may have ... is not so much worth the pains of the study of Philosophy requires"? What appears at first sight as a common-sense rejection of the idle contemplation has in fact a very specific content rooted in the intellectual tradition. Hobbes is attacking a life-ideal that is enunciated in the Nicomachean Ethics Book X Ch. 7. "If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us. ... That this activity is contemplation we have already said. ... For this activity is the best (since not only is intellect the best thing in us, but the objects of intellect are the best of knowable objects); and secondly it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. ., the activity of wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of excellent activities; and at all events philosophy is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, .. . And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, 26 27

Cf. CM 268. See also 'Rational animal' in CPII. p.415-32. Cf. CM 268. See also 'Rational animal' in CP II. p.415-32.

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while from the practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. .. the activity of intellect, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this augments this activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the blessed man are evidently connected with this activity; ... "^

I will call what is enunciated in the above passage as 'theoria-ideal' and the ideal set against it by Hobbes as 'knowledge-is-power-ideal'. I will show that the transition in the tradition from the former to the latter is the result of casting the Aristotelian notion of knowing the 'things that become by themselves' in the mould of another of his notions, knowing the 'things that are made'. My thesis is that it is also the route through which the 17th century notion of 'idea' and the accompanying propositional model of knowledge came into being. 3.4 A Sketch of the Aristotelian System But to argue this thesis I need to situate Aristotle's distinctions within the broader framework of his system. This can be conceived as constituted by three pairs of distinctions and their interrelations: (i) agent vs. patient, (ii) potential vs. actual, (iii) form vs. process or becoming. The last pair is made use of to identify a focus-theme which is discussed by making use of the first two pairs, i.e. the first two pairs provide the conceptual means needed to give an account of the function of form in the process. Man finds himself among the things that grow by themselves such as plants and he makes things for his use such as beds. Conspicuous in both these categories of things is that they are the results of changes undergone, say in our example, by a seed on the one hand and a log of wood on the other. Aristotle's focus theme is such changes from one thing to another. But he conceives such a change as an event taking place in an object (the 'substance' or 'subject' is the traditional term). Let me refer to the event of change as conceived in the Aristotelian framework a 'process' or 'becoming', in order to distinguish it from the modern framework of causality, where one event is conceived as the cause of another event. When 'cause' is spoken of in Aristotle's system, it is not meant to specify an event prior to another event, but to specify the factors involved in one event, say, the event of change that takes place in a substance from a log of wood to a bed. The model to grasp* 'becoming' that Aristotle uses is that of an artificer at work, for instance, a carpenter making a bed. The process of making a bed is conceived as the artificer introducing a form to the matter at hand, i.e. to a log 28

Aristotle Reader, p. 469-70

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of wood.29 But, there is a crucial difference between our common-sense grasp of artificer at work and Aristotle's way of looking at it: in his conception the notion of agency gets transferred from the agent conceived as a person to the form that initiates a change30. Whereas in our common sense conception, a person desires the bed and initiates the process of making the bed, for Aristotle, it is the bed as an object of desire that initiates the action. The Greek term he uses, orexis, includes both the desire and will aspects and it is considered as subsiding in the 'form'31. The common-sense conception may be formulated in the saying 'the carpenter has the desire towards the bed and wills it to be made' In contrast, the Aristotelian diction would be 'the bed is desired and is the impulse for the process of making the bed'. In short the agency is conceived in Aristotle as the result of desire or urge subsiding in the form and initiating a process due to that. The material, formal, final and efficient causes are four different factors that can be differentiated in an event of change. Taking the example of wood to bed, there has to be the locus of becoming from the state of being the log of wood to a state of being a bed (the material cause), the form that is the impulse of becoming (the formal cause), something that constitutes the 'towards which' the becoming tends, or rather something which constitutes the achievement (final cause), and finally, the factor that initiates the becoming (the efficient cause). This last requires some elaboration, because as it is formulated it appears to contradict my assertion earlier, that the agency for Aristotle is located in the form. I will come to it once I have elucidated the notion of potentiality and actuality. For the present it has to be said that the basic contrast in the Aristotelian system is between the material factor and the formal factor, the final and efficient causes being reducible to the factor of 'form'. 9Q

It is within this model that his four 'causes' can be specified. I am indebted heavily for this interpretation to Lear J. (1988); see especially the second and third chapters. The Greek ethos was cosmological in that man was considered as part of the cosmos, and the basic conceptual distinctions were considered as exemplified by the cosmos of which man is a part. The distinction logos/eras made by Plato, and the source of the later distinction between cognitive and motivational factors, follows this basic line of thinking. That is, both the principles were conceived originally as cosmological, unlike the modern splitting up of the motivation as a factor arising in man and due to man, and cognition as a factor due to the object. For Plato, logos is the preestablished goal towards which human striving gets generated by the influence of Eidos itself, i.e. the logos and eras are the distinct aspects of Eidos, and not aspects of cosmos on the one hand and man on the other. The enunciation of human capacities is done in relation to Forms which are realised in the exercise of those capacities. As for Plato, for Aristotle too both cognitive and motivational factors are Object-rooted'. The splitting cognitive aspect from the desire or motivational factors conceiving tha latter as subject-rooted (singular) is the specificity of Modem philosophy. 31 Cf. Physics bk. II, ch.3. 195 b 21.25:"... a man builds because he is a builder, and a builder builds in accordance with the art of building; the art of building, then, is the prior cause, and similarly in all cases ... "; see J. Lear's comment on this passage in Lear J (1988) p.33-36. Also see ibid, 141-51. Also, De Anima, bk. Ill, chapter 10.

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A 'process' or 'becoming' is always initiated by a form of which that form is the end-product (or 'achievement'). As an end-product ofJhe process the form exists actually and as an impulse for the process it exists as a potential. To say that something is a 'potentiality' is to say both that it is an impulse for a process or action, and the end towards which that process or action is directed. For instance, to say that a seed is potentially a plant, is to say both that the plant is a form that resides as an urge in the seed, and as the end-product of the process initiated by this urge. In a metaphor, 'potential' is crying to be 'actualised'. Thus, for Aristotle, 'forms' are logically prior to processes: they pre-exist to processes - not 'actually' but 'potentially'. In Aristotle's framework 'capacities' are potentials attributed to living creatures. I will not go into the difference between 'capacities' and other types of potentials here, since it is not pertinent to my narrative. What is pertinent is to note that the exercise of a capacity is conceived as any other process, i.e., as an actualisation of what is potential. By conceptualising action in this way, the Aristotelian framework avoids the Cartesian dualism, where the representation process is conceived as a special sphere of reality distinct and separable from the other processes. For Aristotle, the representation-process is one among the many processes where forms initiate the process and end in the actualisation of forms. Further, it brings the processes involved in making and thinking about things under the same head: 'knowing' involved in both is, for Aristotle, a capacity for actualization; to that extent, knowledge is conceived on a model of knowing how. However, this 'knowing how' conception is situated within an ontological framework where objects are logically prior to the process or action, and therefore the difference between making and thinking is conceived in terms of the difference between the accusatives of the action32. He distinguishes things into 'those which can be otherwise' and 'those which cannot be otherwise'. The disciplines are divided in terms of whether they occupy themselves with the former or the latter. Even though it is often - correctly - noted that in Aristotle there is a threefold division of disciplines into theoretical, practical and poietic33, what is not always noticed is that there does occur an important contrast between the first and the latter two: whereas the theoretical disciplines are said to be of "things that cannot be otherwise", the practical and poeitic It is noteworthy that a diction such as 'bringing about a form' or 'designing a form' is not permissible within the framework of Aristotle. In both the artificer and the natural reproduction models for explaining change, the action is defined in terms of 'accusatives'. The making is actualising a potential form, i.e. form is already available for realisation. Thus designing of a gestalt or form of an object is not what is thematised by Aristotle in 'making' but only the transfer of forms to the matter at hand. This explains why the discussion on knowing gets confined in the philosophical tradition to the discovery and decision concerning Object' or 'ideas' or 'rules', but the designing or creation off->rms themselves remains outside the purview of epistemology. Cf. for an elaboration of this point, Harrison A. (1978). 33 Cf. Topics VI,6; 1,14; Nicomachean Ethics VI.3-4.

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disciplines pertain to "things that can be otherwise". From the context of the discussion one can discern two implications of the use of the phrase "things that can/cannot be otherwise", (i) It means to make a contrast between the knowledge of the type that while exercising does not bring about the change in the accusative of that act and the knowledge of the type the exercise of which brings about a change in the situation. If not in Aristotle, at least in later Aristotelianism, the former type of knowledge is termed as episteme and the latter type techne. (ii) Aristotle takes the object that is accusative of the act of exercising knowledge in case of theoretical knowledge to be of a particular type; we can have theoretical knowledge of only certain kinds of objects. 3.4.1 Nature and Artefacts, Episteme and Techne One such kind is 'nature1 (physis).^ Nature is that which has become in contrast to the artefact which is that which has been made. A 'form' which is responsible for process in an object is the principle of that object. There are two types of substances in which the event of change take place, natural substances and artefacts, which are distinguished in terms of whether the principle of becoming resides within the substances themselves or outside of the substances in which the event of change takes place35. A plant has its principle of becoming within it, a bed outside it. Thus Aristotle's notion of form (and of an urge to actualise residing in forms) enables him to bring both the natural generation and the making of artefacts under the same framework of potential becoming actual, but nevertheless distinguish them in terms of the location of the form initiating change - whether that form exists in the thing itself or outside of it in the artificer. Further, it helps him to distinguish between intellectual knowledge or knowledge of nature and practical knowledge or knowledge in relation to artefacts. Since nature is that of which the 'principles' of generation exist in things themselves, to actualise the knowledge capacity concerning them is to actualise the principles, i.e. i

* The conception of 'nature' (physis) as something that possesses the source of its change within itself, and that to know a thing is to know it by means of its generating cause, originated in PreSocratics. Aristotle takes over these notions and introduces the distinction between 'nature' and 'artifacts' and correspondingly two types of knowledge, episteme and techne. 5 "Of the things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes. ..'By nature' the animals and their parts exist, and the plants and the simple bodies (earth, fire.air, water) - for we say that these and the like exist "by nature'. . All the things mentioned present a feature in which they differ from things which are not constituted by nature. Each of them has within itself a principle of motion and of stationariness (in respect of place, or of growth and decrease, or by way of alteration). On the other hand, a bed and a coat and anything else of that sort, qua receiving these designations - i.e. in so far as they are products of art - have no innate impulse to change. But in so far as they happened to be composed of stone or of earth or a mixture of the two, they do have such an impulse, and just to that extent - which seems to indicate that nature is a source or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not in virtue of a concomitant attribute." (physics bk II Chi 192 b 193 a )

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forms, in a 'pure way'; that is to say, in such actualisations the accusative of the act and forms are indistinguishable, and since forms are immutable, such 'principles' existing in things themselves and the generating cause of the becoming of the thing can be expressed in context-invariant assertions. Thus 'nature' is that of which 'theory', i.e., context-invariant assertion, is possible. Such a system of context-invariant assertions is termed 'episteme'. That which is made is the sphere of techne. The principles (i.e. the generating causes) of these objects exist outside the bodies - in the agent (Aristotle speaks of 'in the soul') who brings about those things. To actualise the knowledge of techne variety is to make things; in this case the accusative of the act is not identical with the form that initiates the process. Therefore the knowledge of it is not expressible in context-invariant assertions. Another doctrine of Aristotle to note is that of agency. To say that the principle of the becoming exists within a thing does not mean that such a principle, existing as a potentiality, initiates a change by itself. A potentiality, in order to undergo the process of becoming actual, requires an initiator that exists as a form-in-action-process, i.e., something that exists as a process rather than as a precedent or product of a process. A form-in-process is the agency, and "Everything produced naturally or by art is produced by a thing existing actually out o/what is potentially of that sort."36 This doctrine is wha.t is used by Aristotle to propound, on the one hand, his doctrine that there are sense-specific forms corresponding to our senses and intelligible forms corresponding to intellect, and, on the other hand, the distinction between active and passive intellect37. We need not go into these details except observing that the idea of agency being rooted in actuality does not make it equivalent to the conception of the agent in our common-sense, because, as already indicated, the cause is conceived as the form in action: in the example discussed above, the builder building is conceived as the capacityin-exercise that is the cause of change. The capacity, in its turn, is conceived as due to the power accruing through the form residing in the builder38. To summarise, the: basic distinction in terms of which knowledge is discussed in Aristotle is the object and its actualisation. Natural objects can be actualised only in their pure form whereas objects-that-can-be-otherwise are actualised through embodiment through matter. It is the conception of actualisation of natural objects which gave rise to the notion of theory - which

36 37 38

Generation of animals bk. II, 1,734 b 21. (in: Aristotle Reader, p. 246) Cf. J.Lear (1988), sections, 4.3. and 4.4. and Guthrie (1981), 291-303 & 309-327. See foot-note 32.

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later led to the elucidation of knowledge in terms of the object and the representation of it.39 The theoria life-ideal, as embodied in the passage quoted earlier from the Nicomachean Ethics, accords well, and is closely related, with this division of knowledge into episteme and techne. For Aristotle, the task of formulating a life-ideal is the task of answering the question: what is 'arete' (or 'excellence') of a human being? Man has a certain 'nature' and the excellence he is capable of is also the excellence he is called to cultivate and pursue. This follows from the way the process is conceived: as mentioned already, a process is the actualisation of the potential, and to say something is a potential is also to say that there is an urge to actualise it. To say someone has a certain capacity is, therefore, to say simultaneously that he or she can do something and that he or she does find fulfilment in doing that something; i.e. the capacity is a 'potential' in the sense that it implies also an urge to realise one's capacity in action. 'Man has the capacity for intellection' means for Aristotle both that man is capable of understanding and has an urge to understand40. Therefore the life-ideal for man consists in those pursuits where there is an unalloyed exercise of 'intellect', i.e. pursuit of desire and capacity to understand unmixed with other desires and capacities. Thus knowledge is divided into what is pursued 'for its own sake' and that which is pursued because of its instrumental value; theoretical knowledge which is pursued 'for its own sake' results in sophia in contrast to the knowledge pursued for the sake of practical wisdom or phronesis.

·" Since the original framework in Aristotle to discuss any process, including knowledge or representation process, was a causal (or 'genetic') one, the question would arise whether representation is something that is the result of genesis or of making. Thus the basis is laid to conceive the questions about knowledge in a 'causal model' of something arising or resulting from 'manufacture'. Within the Aristotelian framework one can ask what kind of process teaching and learning is - is it a genesis or a production? This is the source of the controversy regarding 'innate ideas'. In medieval times Logic was characterized as 'artes', thus giving rise to the idea of knowledge as the product. This can be considered as the source of Kantian conception of knowledge. ^" It is instructive to note that Aristotle uses 'reason' as a demarcating feature of human beings in two types of contexts (cf. De Anima Book II ch.3; Eudemian Ethics VIII 2, 1248a 27; Nicomachean Ethics X 7, 1178a 2-3). In De Anima as well as in Metaphysics, he distinguishes different levels of capacities - capacity to perceive, remember, imagine and make judgements - that living creatures exhibit. Animals are classified in terms of possessing these capacities. It is in the course of this classification man is said to have not merely sense-capacity but also intellectual capacity. The second type of context is that when Aristotle discusses the appropriate form of life a human being has to aspire as a goal (in his ethical writings). Contemplative life ('doing science') is recommended as the appropriate goal for man, and this recommendation is justified by saying that it corresponds to the highest nature of man as possessing intellect. In other words, the textual contexts in which Aristotle discusses rationality as characterising man, either specify different levels of capacities or justify why a contemplative life is the most appropriate form to be aspired to, and achieved by, a human being.

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Thus 'theory' is conceived, first, as understanding pursued for its own sake, and secondly, of thing« over which man has no power. To have power over things is to be capable of making or influencing their becoming. Man has power over only those things which he makes by transferring forms 'in his soul' to the material at hand. The exercise of such capacities is contextbound41 and it is the sphere of techne (which in the mediaeval period was translated as Artes from which the term 'arts' in the sense of practical skills is derived). Thus, for instance, while physics is a theoretical discipline mechanics is a techne. This also explains why Aristotle asserts that practical intelligence is context-bound and theoretical intelligence is not42. 3.5 Man, 'the Maker' as the Source of Context-invariance: 'Natural Reason' 3.5.1 God as the Artificer and Nature as the Artefact With the above background knowledge of the Aristotelian system of distinctions, it is very revealing to read the following passage that opens the famous book by Hobbes, the Leviathan:

It is interesting to note :hat Acquinas held that regarding contingent truths we can have only Opinions', but not 'knowledge'. Cf. Kretzmann et all (1988), p. 505, especially the foot-note 35: "In particular Acquinas stresses that we have only opinion and neither understanding nor knowledge with respect to contingents: " 'Sic enim se habet opnio circa contingentia, sicut intellectua et scientia circa necessaria' ". This supports my thesis in two respects: first, the knowledge/ opinion distinction in Aristotle was not that sort of distinction which considers one as knowledge (in the contemporary sense of the term) and the other as ignorance; it is evident that Acquinas meant by 'knowledge' the scientific knowledge' or episteme, and it is possible of only those things which are 'necessary'. Of all other things we can have only Opinion1. This is a paraphrase of Aristotle's distinction, we have already come across, that between the knowledge of things 'that cannot be otherwise' and of those things which 'can be otherwise'. As a corollary to this, secondly, Acquina's assertion supports my contention that the search for knowledge was conceived as a search for a context-independent sort of knowledge; that is why Acquinas uses the term Opinions' when he refers to non-demonstrated truths. Nicomachean Ethics Bk. VI, 7, "... Wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of knowledge. .. Wisdom must be comprehension (nous) combined with knowledge - knowledge of the highest objects which has received as it were its proper completion.. For it would be strange to think that the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man is not the best thing in the world. Now if what is healthy or good is different for men and for fishes, but what is white or straight is always the same, any one would say what is wise is the same but what is practically wise is different;... It is evident idso that wisdom and the art of politics cannot be the same; for if the state of mind concerned with a man's own interests is to be called wisdom, there will be many wisdoms; there will not be one concerned with the good of all animals (any more than there is one art of medicine for all things), but a different wisdom about the good of each species." Ackrill p. 421-22. The word 'good' in this quotation, as becomes clear by the reference to the art of medicine for different species, is used in a more comprehensive sense than the moral good. The point it makes is that practical wisdom, whether in politics or in medicine, is more specific to specific things and situations, i.e.it is context bound.

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"Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as intended by the artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that great Leviathan called a Commonwealth, or State, in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man; ... Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together and united, resemble that fiat, or the let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation."43 Here the Commonwealth is said to be an artefact made by man by imitating the natural man; nature in its turn, however, is called the art of God (the 'art1 being the derivation from the Latin translation of Greek 'techne'), thus effacing the Aristotelian distinction between the process of generation and process of making. Apart from this difference, the Aristotelian terminology is evident throughout the work and even in the subtitle of the book, the full title being 'Leviathan or The Matter, Form and Power of A Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil'. The 'matter-form' terminology is directly taken over from Aristotle and is also used with identifiably similar meaning as in Aristotle, with this difference: the notion of agency now rests in the artificer rather than in the form that resides in the artificer. Further, the description of 'art of men' as an imitation of nature is not an accidental metaphor; throughout the Leviathan the metaphor of 'body', and the body having a matter and an artificer, play a crucial role. Hobbes announces the programme and procedure of the Leviathan

as "To describe this artificial man, I will consider First, the matter thereof, and the artificer; both of which is man. ... "44 Further, Though nothing can be immortal, which mortals make; yet if men had the use of reason they pretend to, their commonwealths might be secured, at least from perishing by internal diseases. For by the nature of their institution, they are designed to live, as long as mankind, or as the laws of nature, or as justice itself, which gives them life. Therefore when they come to be dissolved, not by external violence, but intestine disorder, the fault is not in men as they are the matter; but as they are the makers, and orderers of them ...

43 44

LEV, p.59. LEV, p. 59

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Amongst the infirmities therefore of a commonwealth, I will reckon in the first place, those that arise from an imperfect institution, and resemble the diseases of a natural body, which proceed from a defectuous procreation."45

Hobbes here speak;? of giving a diagnosis of the "infirmities" afflicting the body politic comparable to natural diseases. Presumably he considers his work analogous to the theoretical endeavour in the case of medicine which aims at healing. Healing requires an understanding of the mechanisms proper to the body and applying it to restore the original functioning of the body. Whereas the medical man heals the natural body Hobbes1 work is intended to heal the 'artificial man'. But in both cases we need to know the causes of the malfunctioning and the proper function of the body. In Aristotle the paradigm of theoretical exercise is physics and its focus theme is 'generation' of bodies. This remains in Hobbes too: "The subject of Philosophy, or the matter it treats of, is every body of which we can conceive any generation, and which we may, by any consideration thereof, compare with other bodies, or which is capable of composition and resolution; that is to say, every body of whose; generation or properties we can have knowledge. And this may be deduced from the definition of philosophy, whose profession it is to search out the properties of bodies from their generation, or their generation from their properties; and, therefore, where there is no generation or property, there is no philosophy."46

However, now, as a result of blurring the line demarcating production and generation, theory (or philosophy) becomes something else than in Aristotle, for whom philosophy is 'knowing why' of the things, which is knowing them in terms of the generating causes. For Hobbes, on the other hand, it is knowing the effects through reasoning from the knowledge of the generation, and vice versa. It is useful to go into the exact wordings from Hobbes. The following are his two definitions (one in the beginning and another in the chapter Of Method' in his work Elements of Philosophy)', the second definition is avowedly a repetition of the first, but it contains a slight variation of wording which is quite important for our narrative. 1. "Philosophy is such knowledge of effects or appearances, as we acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we have first of their causes or generation: And again, of such causes, or generations as may be from knowing first their effects."47 2. "Philosophy is the; knowledge we acquire, by true ratiocination, of appearances, or apparent effects, of the knowledge we have of some possible production or

45 46 47

LEV, p. 284-5. Ibidp.10. EW. vol I. p. 3.

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generation of the same; and of such production, as has been or may be, from the knowledge we have of the effects."48

In the first definition, having knowledge of 'causes' is equated with having knowledge of 'generation', and this equation is nothing but the repetition of the equation by Aristotle of the aitia and arche. In the second definition, 'production' and 'generation', the two words referring to two different sorts of processes in Aristotle, appear to be interchangeably used. For Aristotle production and generation differ crucially in terms of where the 'principle' of becoming lies, whether in the agent bringing about the object or in the things themselves. In Hobbes, since he understands generation in terms of the artificer God making something, the principle of becoming lie in both cases outside the object: natural things are made by God, artefacts are made by man. Consequently, knowledge of things natural and knowledge as knowing-how to bring about changes are distinguished only in terms of whether we arrive at the mechanism of generation on the basis of observing the products (i.e. 'effects') or generate the effects on the basis of our knowledge of mechanisms. This explains why philosophy (or 'science' or theory) now becomes knowledge arrived at by reasoning - either of generation of bodies (in the sense of knowledge of mechanism underlying the bodies), or of the properties of the bodies (inferred on the basis of our knowledge of their generation). If we now read what Hobbes says on the ends of philosophy, things appear in a quite different light. Man can imitate the production-process involved in the making of things of nature in order to derive benefit for himself. Accordingly 'natural philosophy', the equivalent of Aristotle's physics (and his sphere of theoria), is the knowledge of mechanisms that we can find in nature which can be a means to bring about the desired movement of bodies by imitating the motion of bodies created by God, the artificer. The word mechanisms is used here advisedly, since it was by attenuating the Aristotelian distinction between mechanics and physics that the New Philosophy of Galileo arose and the method of Galileo was the paradigm for the thinking of Hobbes49. For Aristotle Physics is a theory of natural generation and mechanics is a discipline concerned with man-made movements. The subordination of physics to mechanics is also the abolition of the theoria ideal, and instituting in its place the assumption that knowledge is the means of achieving benefits for mankind by discovering and imitating the mechanisms hidden in nature. Thus, 'Knowledge-is-power-ideal' is the consequence of looking at all things as made, thus abolishing Aristotle's other category, things that grow by themselves. 48

EW vol. I. p. 66. See Watkins, (1965) p. 50-51. Ch. three of Watkin's book ably argues for the thesis that Hobbes stays in methodological line influenced by Galileo. Randall (1961) traces the upgrading of the practical arts into theoretical disciplines and the ensuing 'knowledge-is-power-ideal' back to the alliance between the study of medicine and that of Aristotle in Padua.

49

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Though I have elaborated the change from Aristotle to the modern period by taking Hobbes as an example, the conception of natural things as artefacts made by God is not confined to him. Descartes, for instance, says that for the development of his account of nature, "the example of certain bodies made by human art was of service to me, for I see no difference between these and natural bodies excepting that the effects of machines depend for the most parts on the operation of certain instruments, which since men necessarily make them, must always be large enough to be capable of being easily perceived by senses. The effects of natural causes, on the other hand, almost always depend on certain organs minute enough to escape every sense. And it is certain that there are no rules in mechanics which do not hold good in physics, of which mechanics forms a part or species [so that all that is artificial is also natural];... "50 Further, Larry Laudan refers to the metaphor of clock in the writings of Descartes and has very ably argued for the claim that "Descartes' methodology ... was fertile source for discussion among the English thinkers; and especially his view of the universe as a 'mechanical engine' or clock whose internal parts can only be conjectured about served as an important stimulus for the English writers on the method"^. However, we can observe only the effects of 'God's art' but not the process of making by Him. This fact had two consequences as to the way the method and the character of knowledge in the field of natural philosophy was conceived. First, to get at the mechanisms of nature, one has to construct purported imitations of them and see whether thereby similar effects as found in nature can be brought about. This is the notion of experiment, which was suggested by some, especially Galileo, as an alternative to the Aristotelian dialectical deduction 1:0 arrive at the principles. Second, we can have only hypothetical knowledge of the mechanisms of nature, because, as Descartes admits, "But here it may be said that although I have shown how all natural things can be formed, we have no right to conclude on this account that they were produced by these causes. For just as there may be two clocks made by the same workman, which though they may indicate the time equally well and are externally in all respects similar, yet in nowise resemble one another in the composition of their wheels, so doubtless there is an infinity of different ways in which all things that we see could be formed by the great Artificer [without it being possible for the mind of man to be aware of which of these means he has chosen to employ]. This I most freely admit; and I believe that I have done all that is required of me if the causes I have assigned are such that they correspond to all the phenomena manifested by nature [without enquiring whether it is by their means or by others 50 51

HR vol.1, p. 299 Cf. Laudan Lary (1981), p. 28.

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that they are produced]. And it will be sufficient for the usages of life to know such causes, for medicine and mechanics and in general all these arts to which the knowledge of physics subserves, have for their end only those effects which are sensible, and which are accordingly to be reckoned among the phenomena of nature."52

This separation of 'real mechanisms' from 'hypothetical knowledge1 about them also brings about a change in the very meaning of the word 'principle1 from its Aristotelian connotation. Even though in the case of Aristotle's techne, the location of the 'principle' is in the agent who brings about change, nevertheless, for him, as already explained, 'principle1 is a form - a 'form1 in the sense of something that provides an end as well as an impulse for the process, rather than any mechanism to be embodied or the procedure to be followed in the making. Further, the conception of 'form' in Aristotle is conceived within a framework of potentiality and actuality, and so the 'principle' of an artefact is a form potential in the artificer and becomes actual in the object. But 'the art of God' to be divined through reasoning experimental or otherwise - is, on the other hand, more like a blue-print of a machine an inventor has drawn, which is hidden from us, and about which we have to conjecture. This introduces a differentiation of the 'principle' in the sense of 'causal mechanism1 embodied in natural objects from 'principle' in the sense of a representation (a statement or proposition) of that causal mechanism by the agent. But before going into the significance of this differentiation for the emergence of the prepositional model of knowledge, let me discuss another factor introduced by the reduction of the Aristotelian category of 'things that grow by themselves" to that of the 'things made1. Historically, it opened up the possibility of conceiving the principle of Aristotelian mechanics as the prototype for all 'becoming1. Consequently, Hobbes conceives 'motion' as the 'first principle' for all domains of study.53 But more pertinent to our purpose is another consequence. Since the principles are located no more in things but in the agent who makes things, it gives rise to an idea of a 'principle1 introspectively accessible to the maker. 3.5.2 Introspectively Observable 'Internal Motion' Let me elaborate this by discussing the division of disciplines and their rationale as given by Hobbes. In the place of the threefold Aristotelian division of disciplines into theoretical, practical and poietic, Hobbes declares, 52

HR vol.1, p. 300. Cf. "But the cause of universal things (of those at least, that have any cause )... they all but have one universal cause, which is motion. For the variety of all figures arises out of the variety of those motions by which they are made; ... all mutation consists in motion...." in EW. vol I. P. 69-70.

53

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"The principal parts of Philosophy are two. For two chief kinds of bodies, and very different from one ar other, offer themselves to such as search after their generation and properties; one whereof being the work of nature, is called natural body, the other is called a commonwealth, and made by the wills and agreements of men. And from these spring the two parts of philosophy, called natural and civil."54 The natural philosophy is again distinguished into geometry and physics, and civil philosophy into ethics and politics. But what is of interest is his rationale as well as conception of the order of study of these subjects rather than these sub-divisions in themselves. "... physics cannot be understood, except we know first what motions are in the smallest parts of bodies; nor such motions of parts, till we know what it is that makes another body move; nor this, till we know what simple motion will effect. And because all appearances of things to sense is determined, and made to be of such and such quality and quantity by compounded motions,.. therefore, in the first place we are to search out the ways of motion simply (in which geometry consists); next the ways of such generated motions as are manifest; and lastly, the ways of internal and invisible motions (which is the enquiry of natural philosophers). And, therefore they that study natural philosophy, study in vain, except they begin at geometry;... "55 That is, a threefold distinction is made between the discipline treating simple motion (geometry), that treating "generated motions that are manifest" (mechanics?) and that treating bodies with the "invisible motions" (natural philosophy). (The distinction between the latter two appears to be the remaining traces of the Aristotelian distinction between mechanics and physics.) Further, each discipline that treats bodies with motion of a higher order of complexity is conceived as parasitic on the discipline treating the bodies with motion of a lower level of complexity. However, this parasitism is not extended in the case of Civil philosophy even though it is conceived as treating the bodies with a higher order of complex motions. This is because, Hobbes says, "... the causes of the motions of the mind are known not only by ratiocination, but also by the experience of every man that takes the pains to observe those motions within himself. And, therefore, not only they have attained the knowledge of passions and perturbations of the mind, by the synthetical method, and from the very first principles of Philosophy, may by proceeding in the same way, come to the causes and necessity of constituting commonwealths, ... ; for this reason, that the principles of politics consist in the knowledge of the motions of the mind, and knowledge of these motions from the knowledge of the sense and imagination; but even they also that have not learned the first part of philosophy, namely geometry

54 55

Cf. EW. vol I. p. 11 Cf. EW. vol 1. p. 73

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and physics, may notwithstanding, attain the principles of civil philosophy, by the analytical method"56

If we remember that 'analytical method1 is associated in the 17th century with the autobiographical narration57, it is clear that "the motions of the mind" are considered by Hobbes as divinable by "every man that takes pains to observe those motions within himself. In other words, whereas natural philosophy proper is considered by Hobbes to be of things of which the motions are hidden and so have to be gained through ratiocination, the motions of the mind are conceived as that one can have direct access to through introspection.58 Thus, the erosion of the distinction between art and nature, between mechanics and physics on the one hand, and the consequent approach to natural generation as embodying the principles of mechanics on the other, lead to an idea of internal motion discernible through introspection. Here we have a clue as to why the subjectivist turn that Descartes is supposed to have effected in Modern Philosophy came into being. 3.5.3 Knowing 'Natures' to Knowing 'Ideas' But the subjectivist turn proper depends upon a further step taken by Descartes: he suggests that the very 'idea' of motion is not to be had by observation of the motion external to one's own mind. "For nothing reaches our mind from external objects through the organs of the sense beyond certain corporeal movements, .. but even these movements and figures which arise from them, are not conceived by us in the shape they assume in the organs of sense, as I have explained in great length in my Dioptrics. Hence it follows that the ideas of the movements and figures are themselves innate in us"59.

This is certainly a new turn as compared with the ones we have so far encountered: so far, the discussion has been on the object-level without distinguishing it from the representation. Arriving at a principle is arriving at a 'cause' of generation. Even when Hobbes speaks of 'motion internal' accessible to oneself in introspection, his main reference is to such things as 56

Cf. EW. vol I. P.73-4 See Noretta Koertge 'Analysis as a method of discovery during the Scientific revolution1 in: Cohen R.S. and Wartofsky M. (1985) p. 238-256. 5 ^ We can agree with the summary by J.W.N Watkins that according to Hobbes the difference between natural philosophy (the Aristotelian 'physics') and geometry (the aristotelian 'mechanics'?) on the one hand, and civil philosophy on the other, is: "Whereas the motion which produces natural phenomena are external to us and generally hidden from us, the motions which produce the geometrical figures we draw are the motions of our own hand, and the motions which produces a commonwealth are the motions of our minds. Thus the generating cause of commonwealth may be known by any man that will but examine his own mind." Cf. Watkins (1965), p. 70. 5 " 'Notes against a Programme' in: HR vol.1, p. 443. 57

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passion, desire, need ::or security etc., which he considers as the causal factors in the generation of Commonwealth. He does speak of natural philosophy proper being concerned with the 'motion invisible', but not because he believed the external world to be inaccessible to us but because "the motions in the smallest parts of bodies"60 - presumably he is referring to entities proposed to explain phenomena such as light61 - are not accessible to us for observation. In other words Hobbes is addressing the question concerning the procedures we can adopt for acquiring knowledge. In contrast, Descartes is not addressing the question of how we arrive at the object-level discoveries concerning phenomena, but rather, how our representation of these phenomena arise. It is important to emphasise that Descartes' question is not: 'what is the procedure we can adopt to represent the objects?', but rather it is whether "things transmitted the ideas to our minds through the organs of the sense", or "they transmitted something which gave the mind occasion to form these ideas, by means of an innate faculty?".62 This question, I suggest, can only be appreciated if we situate it within an Aristotelian background conception regarding the genesis of intellectual knowledge. In order to substantiate this claim let me first draw attention to a belief which at least on the face of it appears curious to us - held by both Hobbes and Descartes: both of them consider the 'first principles', i.e. the rock bottom premises on the basis of which their systems are built, as known to every human being per se, and its apparent ignorance as only due to corruption by tradition. Hobbes distinguishes "the study of Philosophy" into "enquiry into the cause of some determined appearance" and "the search after science indefinitely"; the latter "consists in the knowledge of cause of all things". In other words it is identical with Aristotle's first philosophy. And he says, "to those that search after science indefinitely, ... it is necessary that they know the causes of universal things,..." 60

EW. vol I. p. 73. Laudan in his Ά revisionist note on the methodological significance of Galilean mechanics' argues "If the whole of 17th-century science had exhibited the largely phenomenological character of Galileo's mechanics, there need have been no revolution in methodology. The picture is quite different, however, when we turn to the other sciences of the time. Although theories of optics, magnetism capillarity, chemical change, and the like, address themselves to the explanation of observable phenomena, the theories themselves postulated micro-entities which were regarded as unobservable in principle. When Descartes, Hobbes, Hooke or Newton sought to explain, for instance, the refraction of light through a prism, their explanations invoked imperceptible particles of various sizes and shapes. When Boyle, Gassendi, or Descartes tried to explain chemical processes, they looked to 'the invisible realm' (as it was called by Newton) for their explanans. One of the most persistent, and philosophically disturbing features of most sciences of the 17th century was the radical observational inaccessibility of the entities postulated by their theories. ... it was this type of theory which occasioned much of the philosophizing of the 17th and the 18th centuries. " Laudan L (1981), p. 21-22. 'Notes against a programme' in : HR vol.1, p. 443.

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"But the causes of universal things (of those at least, that have any cause at all) are manifest of themselves, ... so that they need no method at all; for they all but have one cause, which is motion...., For though many cannot understand it till it in some sort be demonstrated to them, that all mutation consists in motion; yet this happens not from any obscurity in the thing itself, ... but either by having their natural discourse corrupted with the former opinions received from their masters, or else for this, that they do not at all bend their mind to the enquiring out of truth. By the knowledge therefore of the universale, and of their causes (which are the first principles by which we know the dioti of things) we have in the first place their definitions, (which are nothing but the explication of our simple conceptions."63

In a similar vein, Descartes says of his 'principles', "that they have been known from all time, and even received as true and indubitable by all men.... But although all the truths which I place in my Principles have been known from all time and by all men, nevertheless there has never yet been any one, as far as I know, who has recognised them as the principles of philosophy, that is to say as principles from which may be derived a knowledge of all things that are in the world: that is why it here remains to me to prove that they are such"64

Similarly he speaks of some 'eternal truths' which according to him "we cannot fail to recognise .. when the occasion presents itself for us to do so, and if we have no prejudice to blind us."

and further "As regards to common notions, indeed there is no doubt that they may be clearly and distinctly perceived, for otherwise they would not deserve to bear this name; but it is also true that there are some that do not in regard to all men deserve the name equally with others, because they are not equally perceived by all. Not, however, that I believe the faculty of knowledge to extend further with some men than with others; It is rather that these common opinions are opposed to the

63

Cf. EW. vol I. p. 68-70 HR vol.1, p. 209. As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, Descartes in fact takes an even more stronger stand. According to him "the properties of the soul ... are are all to be subordinated two predominant properties, one of which is the perception of the understanding, the other determination of the will. ... When I saw that, over and above perception, which is required as the basis for judgement, there must needs be affirmation, or negation, to constitute the form of the judgement, and that it is frequently open to us to withhold our assent, even if we perceive a thing, I refered to the act of judging, which consists in nothing but assent, i.e., affirmation or negation, not to the perception of the understanding, but to the determination of the will" HR vol.1, p, 445-6. On this basis, that judgement is 'perception of the understanding' plus the assent to it, he develops the thesis in Principles that error is due to assenting to non-clear and non-distinct perception of the understanding. (See note 3 above.) His 'Rules for direction' is meant to construct out of the clear and distinct ideas the whole superstructure of knowledge, supposedly without leaving any room for error to creep in.

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prejudices of some who are thereby prevented from easily perceiving them, although they are perfectly manifest to those who are free from these prejudices."65

This assumption that there are some 'common notions' evident to everyone is the basis of the methods suggested by Hobbes and Descartes to replace Aristotle's dialectical deduction. I shall have more to say about this later. But what is the justification provided for this assumption? Or rather, what is the rationale governing this assumption (since both of them do not provide any justification except ciüng truths accepted commonly in their time and milieu as examples)? To answer, we have to take recourse to Aristotle's theory of intelligible forms. Aristotle distinguishes intelligible from sensible forms, but, as already mentioned, the former are conceived as analogous to the latter in that just as the sensible forms are correlative to senses, intelligible forms are correlative to the intellect.66 But the intellect is not a bodily organ, and this is taken by Aristotle to mean two things: first, its 'actuality' consists in taking the form of its objects, and it is pure activity. Second, because its actuality consists in pure activity, unlike the bodily rooted activities such as perception there is no decreasing intensity resulting from indulgence, but rather an enhancing due to indulgence. (This argument is almost literally repeated by Descartes to make the point that intellectual knowledge is different from practical arts rooted in acquired bodily dispositions.) Intelligible forms are also the essences defining natural kinds and are context-invariant. Both in the objects and in the apprehending persons the individuating factor is their matter, and it accounts for variation among the individuals (both animate and inanimate natural things) belonging to a species; in other words, 'matter' is the factor of contextvariance. Both the activity of actualising the sensible forms and making artefacts involve the matter as a factor of the activity, and therefore they are context-dependent sorts of knowledge. Intellectual exercise concerning things natural is actualisation of pure forms, i.e. actualising the context-invariant variety of knowledge. Even though modern philosophy emerged by eradicating the distinction between the sphere of theoria and that of techne, it nevertheless retained one aspect of the notion of theoria. The two impulses of modern philosophy, to refound the 'sciences' ('natural philosophy') in the First philosophy (Descartes) and to found practical philosophy on secure principles (Hobbes)67, are evidently meant to bring what was traditionally conceived as techne (i.e. the Aristotelian mechanics and politics) under knowledge that can be grasped in terms of the context-invariant principles. In Descartes we find an equation of 65

HR vol.1, p. 239. De anima Bk III ch. 4. 430 a 2-5 Both these impulses continued almost to this day in the unity of science movement on the one hand and the controversy regarding the method and idea of 'social science1 on the other.

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knowledge acquired by tradition with knowledge through senses, and this in turn is equated with Opinion'.68 This means that for him the term 'senseknowledge' and Opinion' are equivalent to Aristotle's 'empeiria' in one respect - in respect of connoting a means of orienting in the day-to-day world. Consequently his thrust to distinguish knowledge from opinion, his polemic against the conception of scientific pursuits in analogy with the practical arts and against the supposition that different disciplines have different methods (mediaeval Aristotelians?),69 as well as his assertion regarding the method of doubt in Meditations, that its "greatest benefit lies in freeing us from all our preconceived opinions, and providing the easiest route by which the mind may be led away from the senses",70 can be taken as an effort in the direction of rehabilitating intellectual knowledge as context-free. 3.5.4 "Thinking Substance' and a State of Error-free Access to Entities However, with the subsuming of the Aristotelian category of 'things that grow by themselves1 under the 'things that have been made', the anchorage, 'nature1 as context-invariant forms, gets removed. In Aristotle techne is context-dependent knowledge. The context-invariance has to be therefore anchored now either in God the Maker or in man the maker. (Descartes in fact makes use of both the options in making God the author of innate ideas in man.) Therefore the intellect - that factor that is supposed to render man's doing different from other processes of nature - becomes the anchorage for context-invariance. This is the source of the notion of 'natural reason' of the 17th and 18th centuries. This is the real subjectivist turn of modern philosophy spanning both the Cartesian and the Kantian varieties. But, whereas in Aristotle intellect is a capacity that becomes actual, has no form of its own and becomes the form of the object of knowledge,71 to anchor context-invariance in natural reason, one has to make it a substance; it has to be conceived as the location of forms that are either implanted by God or formed by being affeced by the bodies from Outside'. Whereas the idiom of Outside' and 'inside' is not possible within Aristotle's framework, since for him forms exist either actually or potentially, and in both cases they exist in bodies of certain sorts, in Descartes intellect becomes a non-bodily substance where forms are located. Consequently forms become the modes of a peculiar substance of which the main character is thinking. Thus the distinction that essences are potential and 6

° 'Notes against a programme' in: HR vol.1, p. 443-444. 'Rules for the direction of the native intelligence', rule 1, HR p. 1-2. 70 CSMp. 73. 71 De Anima 429 b 20-31 and 430 a 15; Also 429 b 31 - 430 a 2. 69

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things are actual transforms into the idea / object distinction, whereby 'idea' also becomes a 'mental object' to be acquainted with. The essential difference which the notion of 'natural reason' made to the notion of knowledge, however, has to be looked for not so much in the notion of 'mental object', but rather in the assumption accompanying it, namely the assumption that there is a source of knowledge where error is ruled out. According to Descartes, judgement is the result of the 'perception of understanding' and the 'determination of the will', these two being the attributes of mind. If i:he determination of the will is exercised in such a way as to give assent only to the clearly and distinctly perceived, then there is no possibility of erroneous judgement. From such an errorless source we are in acquaintance with cen;ain simple natures and the "Whole of human knowledge consists in a distinct perception of the way in which ... simple natures combine in order to build up other objects."72

Hobbes, who does not share Descartes' question whether ideas are 'innate' or not, still does share the assumption that when 'human understanding' is not encumbered by tradition it has the acquaintance with some basic natures out of which the edifice of knowledge can be built.73 This assumption alters the understanding of the task involved in discovering the principles. We can recall that Aristotle made a distinction between 'the prior to us1 and 'prior to nature', and that for him opinions (endoxa) and sense knowledge are 'prior to us' and principles are 'prior to nature'. What is important is to note that both these constitute for him knowledge, one superior and another inferior variety, no doubt, but nevertheless both of them are knowledge. This is not what is presumed by Descartes when he suggests the method of doubt in the place of the dialectic to arrive at first principles. The method of doubt is conceived as a method of excluding possible falsehoods from a collection of propositions constituting everyday beliefs. The principles are considered available as a subset within everyday beliefs themselves, and Descartes conceives the task of discovering principles as one of examining the set of every-day beliefs for their veracity and excluding from them those beliefs which can be false. It is worthwhile drawing attention here to an underlying assumption of the method of doubt: it is assumed that there is a uniform criterion of veracity applicable to all Opinions' as well as to the principles. The arrival of this assumption is indicati ve of another significant change in the understanding of the task of arriving at principles. Aristotle uses 'endoxa' as well as 'episteme' as both specification of the epistemic state and the corresponding objects of which the knowledge is about. The 'arche' is specified as 'general' and a 72 73

HR voll p. 46 See the 'Author's epistle: to the Reader' by Hobbes, EW. vol I. p. xiii, Also ibid, p. 69.

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'cause', the possession of which constitutes one's 'knowing why', and the transition from Opinions' to 'knowing why1 is a transition from one mode of knowledge to another. (This is connected with his doctrine that intellect cannot have anything which is not prior in sense, the function of the dialectic being one of arriving at a context-invariant sort of knowledge from a contextdependent sort.) We can consider that for Aristotle, arriving at a principle is a task of arriving at definitions of 'essences' by refining our every-day concepts and beliefs to make them context-invariant. (The reductio-ad-absurdum sort of arguments are used because it is a method of clearing away from the contextually specific formulations their context-specific elements.). Here clarity is something that attaches to the result of the activity of dialectical arguments, and not something which attaches to one proposition against another independent of the arguments through which they are arrived at. This is also because, as mentioned earlier, dialectical deduction is conceived simultaneously as a procedure of constructing a proposition (i.e. making the proposition understandable) and of justifying it as a principle; consequently, the proposition and the domain the proposition is about are the results of the activity of arriving at a principle. With the assumption that there are certain 'simple natures' which are available to us per se, the task of arriving at a principle no longer includes the aspect of making a proposition understandable. Hobbes even declares that first principles (or the 'causes of universal things' as he calls them) "need no method at all", since they are "manifest of themselves".74 For Descartes, the discovery of first principles do require a method, but only in order to demarcate the indubitably true from the possibly false among opinions. In other words, for Descartes Opinions', unlike the Aristotelian 'endoxa', are available as propositions, the meanings of which will not be changed when proved to be fit candidates for the title of 'principles'; what gets changed is only the status with regard to their justification. This implies a separation of the procedure of making the proposition purported to be a principle understandable - i.e. the meaning-aspect of the proposition - from the procedure of showing that the purported proposition is the principle - i.e. the justification aspect. This would mean, unlike in Aristotle, that for the operation of the method of doubt, the domain and the propositions are pregiven, the method having only justificatory function.75 74

Cf. EW. vol I. p. 69 Suppose we term the activity of making a proposition understandable the 'domain-constitutive', and the activity of justifying the 'domain-describing', then in the modern period, the domainconstitutive aspect of theoretical activity gets pushed into oblivion. This is also connected to another novelty of the modem period. In Aristotle the distinction between word and concept is not that between the public and private sphere. It is perhaps connected with the assumption that there are different languages. The things seen and perceptions of them - both in terms of sense-perception and in terms of perception of 'essences' - are the same. The idea of a distinction between 'private' and 'public' is alien to greek ethos, and therefore the idea of research being possible privately is not

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But the model for justification available to Descartes was the Aristotelian demonstration - a teaching method. As explained earlier, Aristotle's episteme, expressed as an axiomatic system, is a presentation of things in accordance with what is 'prior in nature'. In this notion of science as presentation he had made a distinction between two sorts of veracities - the principles are by nature non-demonstrables - not merely in a particular syllogism, but by their very nature. So they are 'necessary' in a different sense than propositions that are demonstrable. Descartes method of doubt erases this distinction in favour of a uniform criterion of veracity. The basic definition of the principle being that its veracity cannot be questioned, and since the criterion of unquestionable veracity used in 'demonstration1 was that of using the law of non-contradiction, Descartes launches the project of showing that there are non-contradictable propositions, that are the 'foundations' of science. This gives one more twist to the conception of 'principle': the principles gained by the method of doubt are conceived not merely as prior in the order of nature as in Aristotle, but as prior in us, as the foundation of the genesis of our knowledge. That is, the principle now comes to be looked upon as 'cause1 in a new sense. In Aristotle, whatever else be its meaning, 'principle' was conceived as cause in relation to 'things'. But principle 'discovered' through Descartes' method is also conceived as a causal source for knowledge (either conceived in a genetic model as in Locke or in a functional model as in Descartes himself). That is, in the place of the notion of a procedure of stepping from what is, prior to us to what is prior in nature the notion of 'criticism of opinions' - a procedure to exclude the false opinions -, the result of which is that of discovering 'what is prior in us', this latter being conceived as an errorless source of knowledge, is substituted. This means that in the place of the logically conceived Aristotelian two orders - one of things and the other of knowledge - an ontologically conceived two kinds of order of things one of 'nature' and the other of 'mind' - are postulated. In the place of Aristotelian Order of knowledge1, a 'knowledge-domain', having the same ontic status as the Order of nature' but parallel to it, is postulated; and the endeavour to construct the concepts and principles came to be perceived as an endeavour to make discoveries in this domain. In other words, by assuming the examination of propositions to be possible independent of the context of their assertion, i.e. independent of the consideration of the domain to which the proposition applies, Descartes ended up assuming a something noticed or considered significant to be uttered. This changes by the time of Hobbes, for whom the use of language as marks and as signs is an essential distinction (Cf. EW. vol. ch. II. Of Names). The function of Language in investigation is considered by Hobbes as not essential though it may be helpful. This severing the 'public' language from the 'private' thinking leads to a separation of the problems of research from the problems of presentation. For Hobbes the relation between the researcher and the object is between an individual and the object. Hobbes says this explicitly: whereas research is possible by a hermit, teaching requires at least two persons.

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domain of propositions (or 'ideas') independent of the domain of facts. This separation of the result of sign-action into a separate domain is what in substance Cartesian dualism is. As a result method, that was looked upon as a teaching and learning procedure, now comes to be looked upon as a procedure of putting one in acquaintance with objects. 'Method' now becomes something that generates true descriptions of a domain out there. This characterisation of modern philosophy applies even to Kant's transcendental method, which is meant to overcome the dualism of object and description. The method that is supposed to reveal the 'conditions of the possibility of knowledge' ends up identifying the products of analysis as the elements existing out there, the analysis only 'describing' or 'revealing1 the 'nature' of knowledge. As a result, here too method is conceived as aiming at 'true' descriptions. Even when the idea of 'clarification' became the dominant strain in the 20th Century, it is often conceived as making the available 'common-sense' or hazily formed 'scientific' beliefs precise enough in such a way that the result is taken to be approximating the ideal of context-invariance, i.e. clarity is conceived as a property of propositions independent of the context. This is the source of the tendency to conceive the task of clarification to be that of building an ideal language for thought. The notion of method tied to the notion of something that generates authentic description is still a continuing assumption.

Part II

Speech and Reflection

This second part aims at providing an alternative to the propositional model of knowledge. This task will be accomplished mainly by way of an elucidation of Ryle's conception of 'reflection' and 'speech'. Ryle alleges that Cartesianism and the supposition that philosophy is a kind of science rest on conceiving reflection in the model of perception. Against this, he contends that reflection, unlike perception, is adverbial - i.e., it is not an autonomous doing. Reflection, however, does enable us to discover something of our doings, without therefore being an autonomous doing. Similarly, if we conceive speech as an activity of saying something about a domain, philosophical use of words is not an autonomous saying - i.e., it does not give information about any domain - yet it enables us to discover something of our sayings. The crucial notion here is that of 'speech'. Ryle introduces it as a contrast to 'language' - the object of linguistics - in order to serve to demarcate philosophic from linguistic enquiry into meaning. But it also serves a more general purpose: demarcating philosophic from linguistic enquiry is also simultaneously a drawing of the distinction between the former and any sort of empirical enquiry. Secondly, by introducing 'speech' and showing the need to introduce it, his thesis that knowing-how is prior to knowing-that is illustrated. Further, 'speech1 does provide a kind of starting point - quite different in kind from the classical notion of 'foundations of knowledge' - to which all our justifications with regard to our presuppositions concerning domains of enquiry can take recourse. The difference from the classical notion rests in introducing the person-aspect of sign-action and dispensing with any claim to absoluteness: the process of reflection on the one hand makes use of the inherited practice as the starting point, but on the other hand this inherited practice is neither indubitable nor changeless; it does change, in the process of reflection. Even from this bare outline, the main thrust of the strategy followed here becomes evident: it is to shift the focus from science as a true description to scientific description as a discourse. If sciences can be handled as forms of speech-skills or representation-skills, then the possibility of conceiving a reflective as distinct from the object- or meta-level empirical discipline opens up, i.e. the possibility of conceiving an intellectual discipline without postulating a specific domain for it. Thus one can show the precise connection between sciences as empirical enquiries and philosophy as conceptual enquiry: sciences say something about their specific domains and conceptual enquiry is the task of making such sayings - the 'speech' - understandable.

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Thereby an important aspect of the philosophical tradition - the doctrine of categories - can be connected to the question at hand. Classifying the categories is a step in making 'speech' understandable. However the philosophical tradition believed that scientific discourse is potentially a discourse in a universal context. We can take Aristotle and Kant as representatives of two different ways of conceiving the universal context as discernible in the philosophic tradition. In Aristotle, nature is the anchor of the unchanging essences and the universality of context is ensured by nature as the object of theoria. In Kant, this assumption is shifted to the universal human essence - the discovery of human essence by reflection was the source of providing a universal context. Ryle, in contrast, believes that the specification of the categories is relative to the context of discourse. This difference is also an indicator as to why the philosophical tradition, in contrast to Ryle, tends to reduce conceptual to a form of empirical investigation: if concepts are invariant structures lying out there to be discovered, then the distinction between the empirical and the conceptual investigation falls. To sum up, this part is mainly an attempt to connect the following three assertions of Ryle and draw various implications following from such a connection: (i) knowing how is prior to knowing that; (ii) reflection is not an autonomous doing, rather it is 'adverbial'; (iii) there is no finite set of categories adequate for all discourses.

4. Speech and Language Ryle's type of philosophising is often termed as 'linguistic philosophy', and it is said that it considers the critique of language as the main task of philosophy. If understood properly, this characterisation is not merely harmless but even has something to commend about it. But it is crucial to clarify what the term 'language' here means. On how it is understood turn out two entirely different conceptions of what 'linguistic philosophy' is and ought tobe. In order to clarify his conception of the philosophical task, Ryle introduces a contrast between 'speech' and 'language' and asserts that the philosopher's concern is with the former and that of the linguist the latter.1 As a first approximation, 'speech' can be taken to mean our discourse both of a day-today, hum-drum-variety and of the semi-technical and technical variety to be found in academic disciplines, and 'linguistic philosophy', as applicable in Ryle, is concerned with the elucidation of such discourse. The main point he urges is that the elucidation of speech is neither a task of building a linguistic theory nor does it depend upon applying the results of some such theories made available by linguistic science. This stance is diametrically opposed to a prevalent view of what 'linguistic philosophy1 was, is and ought to become. The following opening lines of the introduction by J. Katz to a collection of essays he has edited sums up this view: "There have been two linguistic turns in twentieth century philosophy. In the first and most celebrated, language became the central concern of philosophers who broke with nineteenth-century idealistic philosophy. In the second, linguistics became the central concern of philosophers who wished to put their thinking about language on a scientific basis. This book is an attempt to stimulate a third linguistic turn, one in which the foundations of linguistics becomes the central concern of philosophers who have tried to think about language from the perspective of the science of language."2 The 'linguistic philosophy' is, in this view, either identical with or parasitic on the concerns of linguistic science. Philosophers of this persuasion criticise Ryle's stance as anti-science or anti-theory. 1 2

'Use, Usage and Meaning' (p.407-14) and Ordinary Language' (p.301-18), both in: CPU. J. J. Katz(ed.)(1985)p. 1.

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This chapter seeks to trace back the opposing view-points of what linguistic philosophy is to an even more deep-rooted difference between the object-approach and the knowing how approach. For the former, it may be recalled, the object-apprehensions provide the building blocks of knowledge. A reflection on knowledge, consequently, can only be conceived as examining whether a knowledge claim rests on a correct revelation of objects or not. To construct a theory of knowledge would be to pin down a set of basic objectrevelations into which other object-descriptions can be resolved. Those intuitions or theories making available to us such a supposed basic set of objects is then accorded a primacy over other intuitions or theories. Viewed within this frame, one is likely to construe linguistic philosophy as a doctrine that pins language to the status of basic objects, and correspondingly, linguistic theory as making available the basic object revelations. A reflection on knowledge claims would then be parasitic on linguistic theory. In contrast to this, the knowing-how approach does not construe knowledge in terms of object-apprehension, and as such the question of building a theory of knowledge by according primacy to one set of intuitions or theories over others does not arise. In the place of the distinction made by the object-approach between basic and derivative objects, the knowing-how approach distinguishes between the pragmatic and reflective exercise of a skill. Theories are approached as results of representation-skills and, like any skill, they can be exercised pragmatically or reflectively. 'Philosophy' is the term used for a reflective exercise of a representation skill. A pragmatic exercise of representation-skill can be of an object- or meta-level description of some object or the other. The reflective exercise, on the other hand, aims at thematising the very nature of the particular representation skill in question. To put it in traditional terminology, pragmatic exercise aims at description and, therefore, at truth, while reflective exercise aims at meaning or understanding rather than truth. This, however, should not be confused with aiming at a description or explanation of 'meaning' conceived as a phenomenon. This latter would be a pragmatic exercise of a representationskill, at a meta-level of an object-level representation. Rather, it is thematising a particular representation in the very act of representing. Accordingly, philosophy has nothing to do with taking some science or theory as the base. Thus criticism of Ryle's stance as anti-science or anti-theory can be seen to arise from the assumptions of an approach Ryle polemicises against, and is therefore symptomatic of that polemicised view rather than an invalidation of Ryle's brand of linguistic philosophy. This chapter also has a subsidiary theme - in fact a corollary to the contrast between object and knowing-how approaches. Any use of a term involves a context. Both in day-to-day and in scientific discourse the context remains in the background and is assumed to be invariant. Especially in the case of scientific theories, the ideal aimed at is to make the use of terms independent

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of context. The only way of doing this is to fix a context of understanding as given and unchanging. This means a model used to specify a domain for empirical investigation presupposes a context frame: whereas a model pins down a particular knowing-how or aspects of it to an object empirically investigable, the context-frame provides parameters for locating the niche of the knowing-how in question within the totality of knowing-how level knowledge. A context-frame, however, is tied in its turn to some context or other, and if a context-frame is absolutised, i.e. taken to be universally available, we end with the assumption of a realm of 'philosophical truths'3 underlying particular truths delivered by different empirical disciplines, or with the assumption of the primacy of truths delivered by one particular empirical discipline over all others. This would mean that the technical terms are conceived in such a way that though they may depend, practically speaking, upon a contextual help for their understanding, in principle, that help can be dispensed with. An approach that makes object-apprehension the basis of all knowledge tends to postulate the object-demarcation relevant to some context to be the object-division, i.e., it tends to absolutise some context as a universal context of discourse. For the knowing-how approach, on the other hand, the demarcation of objects is relative to a context, and this context-dependency is part of any theoretical venture. Such a stance allows us to conceive a use of terms whose only function is to bring about an understanding by making contextually dependent distinctions, and nothing else. For instance, one can conceive of a contrastive use of terms which, on the one hand, introduces distinctions and similarities where none so far existed, and on the other, draws attention to the very use of the terms that brings about such an understanding. (In fact in philosophical literature we do come across such a use abundantly.) Such use of terms which signals its own context of use I will call 'reflexive use', and elucidating this is one of the aims of this chapter. 4.1 Speech I suggested in the introduction to this part of the book (i.e. Part II) that one of the main components of Ryle's elucidation of the philosophical tasks is that of showing how it differs from that of linguistics and, by derivation, from any empirical enquiry. The crucial move in this endeavour is his introduction of the following three contrasts: (i) 'speech' versus 'language' (ii) 'logical grammar1 or 'logical syntax' versus 'grammar1 or 'grammatical syntax'. This is what Ryle suggests happened in the case of Husserl and Kant. We can recognise the same mistake in the case of Transcendentalists like Apel.

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(iii) the 'use' of words versus 'usage' and 'utility' of words. In each of these the right hand side of the contrast is meant to denote the domain of linguistics and the left hand side a focus notion that can bear the burden of an alternative kind of exploration than empirical investigation; it fulfils the role of both not being a domain of linguistics and also not being a domain at all. I will use 'speech1 as a general term for this focus notion and 'logical grammar' and 'use of words' as terms to elucidate different aspects of 'speech'. The way this notion of speech is introduced can itself provide us with an illustration of a kind of exploration alternative to the empirical one, i.e., an illustration of Ryle's conception of what it is to do philosophy. "Sometimes a person tries to say something and fails through ignorance of language. Perhaps he stops short because he does not know or cannot think of the required words... Perhaps his failure is of lesser magnitude; he says something unidiomatically or ungrammatically; ... Such failures show that he has not completely mastered, say, the French language. In the extended sense of the 'rule' in which a rule is anything against which the faults are adjudged to be a fault, solecisms, mispronunciations, malapropisms, and unidiomatic and ungrammatical constructions are breaches of rules of, e.g. the French language. ... The reproof 'You cannot say that and speak good French' is generically different from the reproof 'You cannot say that without absurdity'. The latter is not a comment on the quality of the speaker's French, since it could be true though the speaker had spoken in flawless French, or had not been speaking French at all, but in English or Greek instead. ..."4 "Logicians and philosophers are, ex officio, much concerned with kinds of things that people say. Only where there can be fallacies can there be valid inferences, namely in arguments; and only where there can be absurdities can there be nonabsurdities, namely in dicta. ... A fallacy or an impossible consequence may indeed have to be presented to us in French or English, etc. But it does not follow from this that what is wrong with it is anything faulty in the French or English in which it is presented...." 5 Here, the term 'language' and the instances of language such as French or English relate us to a familiar context of use and thereby provide us a background from which to mark out a notion to capture a certain aspect of our know-how to deal with and in the world by using words. 'Language1 and 'grammatical mistakes' are notions we are familiar with especially from our attempts at learning a second language, and these are made use of to mark out the notions of 'speech' and 'speech-faults'. These latter notions are constituted by the very contrast they bear to looking at the talking (and making mistakes * CPU 410 5 CPU 411

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while talking) from the perspective of the notion 'language' or 'grammar'. Obviously, Ryle's aim is not one of focusing on the nature of the languages or grammar as such; he does not fill out the details of what it is to be language in such a way as to provide a model to serve empirical investigation. That is, the focus in drawing the speech-language and other two contrasts is, on the first leg of the contrast, the function of the other constituent being one of providing a reference point from which a difference can be set off. In short, the disquisition is meant to set up or institute a concept rather than to provide description of an identified phenomenon. Whereas in the above passages the familiar notions are put to use to provide a differentiating anchor to a new concept 'speech', in the following this new concept is given substance by making use of another device that Ryle often puts to use very effectively. The first passage below uses a metaphor and the second recalls a dramatic instance of a perfect exercise of language skill to say something very queer, thereby bringing out the difference between a perfect exercise of a language-skill and saying something intelligible. "A Language, such as the French language, is a stock, fund or deposit of words, constructions, intonations, cliche phrases and so on. 'Speech' can be conscripted to denote the activity or rather the clan of activities of saying things, saying them in French, it may be, or English or some other language. A stock of language-pieces is not a lot of activities, but the fairly lasting wherewithal to conduct them; somewhat as a stock of coins is not a momentary transaction or set of momentary transactions of buying, lending, investing, etc., but is the lasting wherewithal to conduct such transactions. Roughly, as Capital stands to Trade, so Language stands to speech." 6 " ..., what is impossible in 'Cheshire Cat vanished, leaving only her grin behind her' is not any piece of intolerably barbarous English. Caroll's wording of the impossible story could not be improved, and the impossibility of his narrated incident survives translation into any language into which it can be translated. Something was amusingly wrong with what he said, but not with what he said it in."7 Because the institution of a concept is done through recalling familiar experiences and making one deliberately notice distinctions hitherto not cared for, the use of dramatic examples and pithy metaphors are a necessary part of the philosophical activity as Ryle understands it. 4.1.1 Contrastive and Definitional Uses of Technical Terms An elucidation of the difference between differentiating an identified phenomenon and setting up a new concept by drawing contrasts is crucial to 6 7

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our purpose, and it can be done by comparing Ryle's contrasts with the contrasts apparently similar to his. The linguists Saussure and Chomsky, in pursuing the objective of setting up an adequate programme of empirical investigation for linguistic science, use a pair of terms, 'langue/parole' and 'competence/ performance' respectively. On the face of it, Ryle's contrast appears identical with these both in motivation and content: it is in order to specify the domain of linguistics that the first constituent of each of the pairs is introduced by contrasting it with, as well as singling it out from, the second constituent of the pair. Of course, Ryle's motivation is to show how the philosopher's concern differs from that of the linguist's; but even then, one may think, the contrast made is the same. On closer examination, however, this impression disappears. Both Saussure and Chomsky begin with the fact that human beings communicate with each other by speaking, and ask the question where to draw the line between what concerns the linguist and what does not. It has to be noticed that the starting point here is not the notion of 'language' as in the case of Ryle, nor the notion of 'speech', but the phenomenon of people speaking with each other. Saussure suggests that the 'speech-fact' (langage) is too heterogeneous and insufficiently demarcated from other facts to be a domain that can investigated in an orderly way.8 It involves, according to him, a physiological process of hearing and producing sound, a psychological process of associating "sound image with the concept" and the social fact of a system of signs common to all members of a community; as he puts it we cannot "discover its unity". From this "mass of speech facts" Saussure attempts to demarcate the domain of linguistics by distinguishing a social side of speech from the "individual execution". The former he terms 'langue' ('language system') and the latter 'parole' ('speaking').9 g

9

Cf. "But what is language [langue]? It is not to be confused with human speech [langage], of which it is only a definite part, though certainly an essential one. It is both a social product of the faculty of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty. .. speech is many-sided and heterogeneous; straddling several areas simultaneously - physical, physiological, and psychological - it belongs both to the individual and to society; we cannot put it into any category of human facts, for we cannot discover its unity. Language, on the contrary, is a self-contained whole and a principle of classification. As soon as we give language first place among the facts of speech, we introduce a natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classification." Saussure F.D., (1966) p. 9. In elucidating his notion of langue, Saussure first delineates what he calls 'a speech circuit' connecting a speaker and a hearer, and suggests: "Among all the individuals that are linked together by speech, some sort of average will be set up: all will reproduce - not exactly of course, but approximately - the same signs united with the same concepts. How does the social crystallisation of language come about? Which parts of the circuit are involved? ...The non-psychological part can be rejected from the outset. When we hear people speaking a language that we do not know, we perceive the sounds but remain outside the social fact because we do not understand them. .. Neither is the psychological part of the circuit wholly responsible: the executive side is missing, for execution is never carried out by the collectivity. Execution is always individual, and the individual is always its master: I shall call the executive side speaking [parole], ..

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Chomsky explicitly refers to this in formulating his conception of the object of linguistic investigation, but makes it more precise by bringing to bear to his reformulation of the idea of 'langue' a particular theory of science. Starting from the fact o:r human beings speaking, he suggests that, "Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of language in actual performance. ... To study the actual linguistic performance:, we must consider the interaction of a variety of factors, of which the underlying competence of the speaker-hearer is only one. In this respect, the study of language is no different from the empirical investigation of other complex phenomena. We thus make a fundamental distinction between competence (the speaker-hearer's knowledge of his language) and performance (the actual use of language in concrete situations). Only under the idealisation set forth in the preceding paragraph is performance a direct reflection of competence. In actual fact, it obviously could not directly reflect competence. A record of natural speech will show numerous false starts, deviations from rules, changes of plan in mid-course, and so on. The problem for the linguist, as well as for the child learning the language, is to determine from the data of performance the underlying system of rules that has been mastered by the speaker-hearer and that he puts to use in actual performance. .. The distinction I am noting here is related to the langueparole distinction of Saussure; but it is necessary to reject the concept of langue as merely a systematic inventory of items and return rather to the Humboldtian conception of underlying competence as a system of general processes."10 What is of interest to us are not the details of what Chomsky and Saussure mean by the terms in question, but rather the manner and the purpose of the distinction made by them. This distinction was made in the course of making precise what constitutes a domain of linguistics: an empirical enquiry presupposes a certain view and specification of the domain to be investigated. Making distinctions in order to achieve this is a task of clarifying a suggestion progressively, in order to make a definitive statement as to what the domain of linguistics is, how it can be investigated empirically, what an empirical theory should accomplish in this field and what its criteria of success are, etc.11 Both How can that social product be pictured in such a way that language will stand apart from everything else? If we could embrace the sum of word-images stored in the mind of all individuals, we could identify the social bond that constitutes language. ... For language is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity. In separating language from speaking we are at the same time separating (1) what is social from what is individual; and (2) what is essential from what is accessory and more or less accidental." ibid., p. 13-14. 10 J. J. Katz (ed.) (I985) p. 30-82 (emphasis mine) This task can be considered as the task of 'philosophy of linguistics'. Cf. section 4.5.3.

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Chomsky's and Saussure's use of the speech-language contrast has to be situated in this context, and can be considered as the first step of building a model to serve an empirical investigation. The distinction is drawn within an identified phenomenon, and its function is to exclude the area lying on one side of a line from the area lying on the other side: it is meant to say that 'parole' or 'performance' are the phenomena that are of no interest to the linguist. Ryle's distinction is, on the other hand, meant to show up the contrast, and in this very showing up of the contrast, to build a new notion: the two sides of the contrast are relationally defined, and the demarcation has the function not so much of excluding one area from another, but of illuminating an alternative concept, 'speech', by drawing attention to a familiar concept, 'language', and the boundary of its application. Accordingly the roles of the terms are also different: the terms 'langue' and 'competence' are meant to communicate something by referring - however indefinite the domain referred to may be; Ryle's 'language1 on the other hand is meant to recall to the reader a familiar concept, and how it is applied and where it cannot be applied. This use of terms to recall a familiar notion and thereby institute a new notion is an instance of a reflexive use of words: here the words 'speech' and 'language' are introduced by using them to make a distinction, and in that process the use of these words themselves is drawn attention to. This serves the purpose of constituting the notion of speech by way of a contrast to a familiar notion, a language. This constitution of a notion, it has to be emphasised, is not equivalent to the constitution of a domain: even though the latter presupposes the former, the former does not presuppose the latter - there can be notions that have only a reflexive function. Ryle's 'speech' is one such notion, and this will be elaborated in detail later, but assuming such a status for 'speech' would mean another difference between Ryle's 'speech' and the notions of 'parole1 and 'performance': parole and performance are conceived as phenomena that can be talked about like langue and competence; Ryle's 'speech1, on the other hand, though it can be about language, cannot be about speech itself. When handled as an object, speech activity is no longer 'speech' in Ryle's sense, but 'language'. Thus 'parole' and 'performance' come under Ryle's term 'language', because in contra-distinction to Ryle's 'speech' they are conceived as empirically available domains. 4.2 Speech as a Skill vs. Language as an Object As mentioned above, the notion of 'speech' is introduced in order to specify the nature of philosophic investigation. Ryle's thesis is that philosophy is concerned with speech and not language. The point of this thesis becomes clearer in the next two contrasts, namely, 'grammar' vs. 'logical grammar' and

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'use of a word1 vs. 'usage' and 'utility of words'. They make precise what it is to investigate speech. The: notion of 'logical grammar1 is meant to clarify in what way the philosopher's concern is parallel to and divergent from that of the linguist. The notion of the 'use of a word' is meant to clarify the nature of the logical priority of the philosopher's concern to that of the linguist, and how the former cannot be derivative of, or parasitic on, the latter. An elucidation of both these notions together would bring out the non-empirical nature of philosophic investigation. 4.2.1 The 'Logical Grammar1 The notion of 'logical syntax' is introduced by marking out a certain kind of fault from the more familiar mistake of violating the grammatical rule of a language. These latter mistakes are specific to specific languages, and so they are language faults arising out of either insufficient knowledge of a language or insufficient practice in speaking a language. One has to distinguish this from the non-solecistic speech-faults which result in utterances only seemingly meaningful; unlike the case of language faults, here one cannot be said to have violated any grammatical rule of any language. Yet, something is violated; if 'rule' is taken to refer to that aspect of constraint on our talking behaviour which thereby enables us to communicate something definite, then it is evident that to make our utterances meaningful we have to conform to some rules other than, and in addition to, the grammatical rules of a natural language. To refer to such rules that are violated in spite of conforming to the rule of a language, producing thereby non-sensical utterances, Ryle borrows a term that is found in the works of both Husserl and the early Wittgenstein - 'the logical syntax'. 12 12

Cf. CP II 363. and also CP II 413-14, especially the passage: "Early in this century Husserl and later Wittgenstein used the illuminating metaphors of 'logical syntax1 and 'logical grammar'. Somewhat as, say, indicative verbs used instead of subjunctive verbs render some would-be Latin sentences bad Latin, so certain category-skids and logical howlers render dicta, said in no matter which tongue, nonsensica, or absurd. A so-called Rule of Logical Syntax is what a nonsensical dictum is breach of. But the analogy must not be pressed very far. The rules of Latin syntax ... are parts of the equipment to be employed by someone if he is to say either sensible or silly things in decent Latin. The Rules of Logical Syntax, on the other hand, belong not to a Language or Languages, but to Speech. A person who says something senseless or illogical betrays not ignorance but silliness, muddleheadedness or, in some of the interesting cases, overclevemess. We find fault not with his schooling in years gone by but with his thinking here and now. He has not forgotten or misremembered any of his lessons; he has operated unwarily or over-ingeniously in his execution of his momentary task. In retrospect he will reproach ... himself not for never having known something but for not having been thinking what he was saying yesterday. The vogue of using 'Language' and 'linguistic' ambivalently both for dictions and dicta, i.e., both for words, etc. that we say things in and for what we say in them, helps to blind us to the wholesale inappropriateness of the epithets which fit pieces of language to the sayings of things with those pieces; and to the wholesale and the heterogeneous inappropriatenesses of the variegated epithets which fit things said to the language-pieces and language-patterns that they are said in."

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However the implied analogy between grammar and logical syntax is subtler than it appears at first sight; it is meant to extend the notion of 'rule1 rather than merely extending our attention to an unnoticed feature. That is, if the analogy is read as a suggestion that there is a codifiable set of rules parallel to 'rules' in the linguist's sense, but now something that determines the demarcation line between sense and non-sense, then the analogy runs counter to Ryle's purpose: 'rules' in the linguistic sense are empirically investigable, but Ryle needs a notion to distinguish a philosophical task from empirical investigation. So the analogy is meant to do something other than to draw attention to a feature similar to the one familiar to us. In this connection, it is useful to remember that even though the introduction of 'logical grammar' makes use of an analogy to grammar, it is meant to be a notion in contrast to that of 'grammar'. 4.2.2 'Ideas' and 'Meanings' vs. 'Use of a Word' The fact that there is a contrastive role assigned to the distinction between grammatical and logical syntax can be appreciated if we remember the reason why the 'rule1 idiom was introduced at all. It was meant to polemicise against, and thereby substitute and supplant, the 'idea' and 'meaning' idioms widely prevalent in the discourse concerning representation.13 The common assumption characterising both these latter idioms is that representation is to be elucidated by postulating a meaning-object or representation-object. The underlying model is that of the subject having the object in the mind (the presemiotic acquaintance relationship). One can identify three main consequences of this model: (i) Since the real representations are objects in the mind or available to the mind (or 'thinking') as such, the communication is representation only derivatively. Both 'ideas' and 'meanings', whatever other differences one may associate with them, are conceived of as 'accusatives' of a thinking action that is logically independent from communication. Sounds or physical objects become a representation because of their association with an intention or idea or meaning. Thus, communication has the task of enclothing the representation-objects into objects available to sense-perception. Among other things, this sundering of representation from communication expresses itself in the assumption that terms are logically prior to sentences and that the meaning of a term is the object named by it. If representations are ultimately some primordial objects given non-semiotically, then the task of elucidating the meaning would be equivalent to the task of making these primordial

13

Cf. CPU p. 305-6.

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objects available to the mind. 14 In that case, the meaning of linguistic expressions or chains of expressions can only be conceived in terms of the name and the object named, i.e., in terms of the standing-for relationship. (ii) The elucidation of speech becomes a task of piercing through sounds or behaviour towards an underlying system of objects (which in its turn may be conceived either as naturally existing or as brought about by agents through conventions and intentions). This makes a contrast between 'speech' and 'language' as made by Ryle superfluous, thereby erasing the distinction between conceptual and empirical enquiries. For both expressions and their accusatives are conceived as objects - one in the physical world and another in a mental world ('ideas') or a third platonic realm ('meanings') - and a saying stands either for one of these representation-objects or a complex of them.15 Here the meaning-aspect is not something to be elucidated but assumed to be uncovering the given. The task of giving an account of 'speech' is consequently one of finding out v/hat constituents it has. This noting down of the constituents is nothing but the noting down of a system of objects - either constituting a natural language or a system underlying it conceived as the 'language of thought';16 this latter in turn may be conceived either as innate to all human beings or specific to a cultural group, thus giving rise to attempts to peer through the habits of exotic groups to get at the 'meanings' common to a group-subject. (iii) The question of specifying representation would be construed as giving an account of how it is caused or how it is made. Since there is nothing to be said as far as the meaning aspect is concerned, except how a meaning complex comes into being or is produced out of the given meaning-elements, specification of speech reduces itself to describing a causal process or a production procedure. In short, when representation is an object, the question of specifying the action in relation to it gets cast into the model for describing the causal processes or procedures involved in making a product out of the raw material. Both the terms 'use of a word' and 'logical syntax' have been adopted from Wittgenstein in order to correct this situation, by suggesting that representation be looked at not as an object but as a specific form of action: the 14

The philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries believed that the clarification of thoughts was a task of bringing one to inte \lectually see the Ideas free from verbiage. The criterion of clarity and distinctness for truth was formulated by Descartes in the context of his belief that judgement is the result of perception of understanding and the operation of the will, and therefore perception of understanding without the operation of the will is an errorless source of acquaintance with objects. Cf. Ch. 3 above. 5 Therefore the activity of specifying the nature of speech is one of retracing it back to its constituent elements and relations. In so far as the objects of the physical world are identified or referred to through words, this is conceived as happening via meaning-objects - the objects of the physical world being the exemplifications or these meaning-objects. 1 Fodor devotes a whole book to arguing out the thesis that there is a language of thought which he terms 'mentalese'. Cf. Fodor (1975)

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suggestion is that instead of looking at learning the meaning of a word or expression as learning that the word has this or that object as its accusative, one has to look at it as one of learning a way of doing something by using a word in analogy to doing something by using an instrument. Instead of looking at the 'idea' or 'meanings' as special objects giving definitional substance to a form of action, we have to look at them as the results of a particular sort of action, the sign-action, and look at the task of giving an account of representation as one of specifying the conditions under which this form of action can be identified in contrast to other forms. In this, the task of specifying representation is not separable from that of specifying communication - the learning to understand or to think and the learning to communicate are one and the same thing: it is to make distinctions by wielding instruments like words or other objects. This is a socially available action and therefore simultaneously a representation and a communication. 4.2.3 Generative and Constitutive Rule But what is the point of the notion of 'rule' or 'logical syntax' in this? If we dispense with the notion of meaning-objects, then we have to give an alternative account of both the task of specifying the meaning of a particular word or assertion, and the task of specifying what the meaning itself is. In other words, if we look at representation as a form of action then we are faced with two tasks: first, the task of providing a criterion to differentiate different kinds of representation actions from one another, and second, the task of providing a criterion to demarcate the representation form of action from other actions. The talk of 'rule' is meant to be an aid in these tasks. To show how this is the case, we must first disentangle the different conceptions of rule we come across. First, we have to distinguish the use of 'rule' in speaking about habits from its use in speaking about actions. A predictable behaviour, whether arising out of habituation to social norms or due to biological characteristics, is often described as rule-governed. It means merely that the behaviour is predictable by using some rule, and in this case 'rule1 is an instrument for observation and prediction of events, and it is not distinguishable from 'law1 of nature.17 But things are different when one describes someone as 'following a rule of thumb' or 'following a very complex rule'. Such descriptions involve identifying the observed instance as a way of doing things, i.e., as an action in contrast to an event. Here 'rule' is distinguishable from law of nature, since the attribution of

Descriptivists' understanding of the grammatical rule approximates to this conception.

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the 'rule following' is a construction of an Other1 to whom agency is attributed.18 In connection with a way of doing things, 'rule' can be used in two different senses: (i) The result of an action can be seen as a product arising out of an application of certain 'rules' by an agent - in the sense of a set of procedures wielded by him to generate a product. In this case the knowing of the rules by the agent is a pre-condition to the action of bringing about the product. Let me call this 'generative rule', (ii) An action and its result can be seen as something that conform to a set of criteria, but a formulation of these criteria is not a logical pre-condition to any performance in accordance with them. In this case 'rules' can be conceived as certain social norms that permit certain ways and prohibit certain other ways of doing things, and these permissions and prohibitions constitute the identity-criteria for a particular action. A similar normative and constitutive sense of 'rule' can be conceived of in judging a product to be of this or that representation. Let me call this a 'constitutive rule'. Ryle suggests that the point of introducing the notion of 'use' and 'rule' is that, unlike in the case of 'concepts' or 'ideas' where it appears odd to say that they might be meaningless or absurd, there is no such problem in saying that an expression is used in an absurd way.19 Just as the use of an instrument can be faulty (i.e. a misuse), thereby failing as an action accomplishing a task, similarly a word can be misused, the result of which is an apparent sentence a non-sensical utterance. Thus 'rule' is meant here as a notion to demarcate between a successful representation action and a failed one. By the same token, it can be a notion of demarcation between one sort of representation action from another: the distinction between one action and another does not lie in the object used but in how the object is used. In other words, it is 'rule' in the constitutive sense when one speaks of 'logical syntax'. However, one has to notice that while speaking of norms constituting an action one can distinguish between the acceptable social mores and habits, and the norms that constitute the very practice, and without which the practice itself cannot be identified or understood. In other words one can distinguish the notion of acceptability from the notion of constitutive rule - even if these two notions may intermingle in practice. The notion of grammar provides an ideal example for a case study both of the intermingling of different 18

'Rule' in the latter case is not an observational category, but rather a participatory category. I use 'participatory' as correlative to action (involving both 'co-operation' and 'competition') and Observatory' as correlative; to 'events' and Objects'. 19 Qf "There is another merit in this idiom. Where we can speak of managing, handling and employing we can speak of mismanaging, mishandling and misemploying.... Where it would sound unplausible to say that concepts or ideas or meanings might be meaningless or absurd, there is no such unplausibility in asserting that someone might use a certain expression absurdly. An attempted or suggested way of operating with an expression may be logically illegitimate or impossible, but a universal or a state of consciousness or a meaning cannot be logically legitimate or illegitimate." CP II 306-7.

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conceptions of rule in practice and also of the possibility of differentiating the constitutive rule from the notion of 'acceptability'. 4.2.4 The Linguist's Conception of Rule: the Notion of Acceptability Central to the linguist's conception of rule is the notion of 'correctness1.20 The notion of grammar came into being as a task of providing recipes for writings.21 Accordingly, the 'rules' of grammar were recommendatory or prescriptive to begin with. The task of the grammarian was seen as one of making some analytical paradigms available for imitation: he has to choose the best examples of texts (from the reputed writers) and analyse them into a set of steps or procedures which, when followed, result in those and similar texts. Grammar, thus, was an analytical repertoire of suggestions for good writing, the function of analysis being that of providing detailed procedures for constructing a schema. Instead of limiting oneself to the reputed texts of well-known writers, one may take even ordinary sayings for the purpose of distilling the recommendations or prescriptions. But in that case, the notion of 'correctness' is likely to assume a new meaning: especially when the focus is on the spoken text of a foreign language instead of the written texts of classical languages, the task of the grammarian gets understood as also that of informing about the conventions prevailing in a community, rather than merely providing a recipe or prescriptions to produce a 'good' text.22 Thus one can perceive grammar as the description of conventions prevailing in a community, arrived at on the basis of an analysis of a collected corpus of speech of that community. This is how the so-called descriptivists among the linguists at the beginning of this century conceived their task. This opens the way for conceiving grammar as a system of rules; for the noting down of the prevailing conventions compels one to develop a perspicuous way of representing those conventions, thus codifying the rules in the course of noting them down. One also tends to draw clear demarcation lines in the place of uncertain conventions regarding instances in the boundary condition. A further extension of this trend results in setting systematisation as the goal of grammar: grammar can be looked at as a system

This may be embodied in the notion of acceptable writing or sentence, or in the notion of a well formed formula. 21 Cf. Lyons J. (1969) p. 9; G. Sampson (1980). In Dionysius Thrax, the grammar and theory of literature were not distinguished. 'Grammar' is etymologically connected to the art of writing. 22 It is significant that descriptivism came into being in the context of researches on the languages of America. So long as the focus was confined to European languages, the parts of speech tradition along with historical linguistics prevailed. The advent of Boas and his pupils meant looking at the different ways of thinking and talking (the continuation of 'Laws of thought tradition of Grammar' combined with an empirical interest in recording the facts) in order to record rather than to prescribe.

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of rules to generate sentences, an algorithm, instead of a set of analytical paradigms for imitations.23 Common to any of these conceptions of grammar is the idea of a 'rule1 as that which demarcates what is a correct expression in a language from what is not. A grammar can be looked on as a set of recommendations and prohibitions, which might be the ones formulated from a participatory perspective - in which case they are prescriptions; or as ones formulated from an observant stance - in which case they are meta-descriptions, the grammatical rule being a meta-statement about linguistic practices.24 What is to be noted is that the search for rules here is a search for the conditions of acceptability and not for the conditions of understanding, and further, the formulation of such conditions of acceptability presupposes the availability of a set of understanding actions: the descriptive or prescriptive rules of grammar are aids to enclothe something already understood in an acceptable form. The 'logical grammar', on the other hand, is introduced to speak of 'rules' constituting these very understanding actions or the 'meanings'. Put in terms of another of Ryle's contrasts, while the task of grammar is to formulate the rules of usage, the task of logical grammar is to formulate the rules of use. In the case of 'use', rules are constitutive in such a way that they form the identity conditions of the (representation-) action. This brings us to another of Ryle's theses connected with the contrast, use versus usage and utility, because it is connected with the question: what is it to formulate the identity conditions of an action? 4.3 'Usage'and 'Utility' Parasitic on 'Use' As mentioned already, Ryle brings to 'speaking' an analogy of knowing how to do something by using an instrument. With its help he distinguishes questions regarding 'use' that demand the specification of the techniques from two other sorts of questions, first, regarding 'utility1 or 'usefulness' and second, regarding the 'usage1 of words. The use of an instrument is a skill, a method of doing things that can be learnt and taught. 'Utility', on the other hand, is how an object is judged in relation to a purpose; the contrast in the latter case is between useful and useless in contradistinction to the contrast between use and misuse or mistaken use in the case of the former. Similarly, usage is something that can be noticed, observed or described, because by that term is meant

•ΊΤ

It is significant that Harris foreshadowed much of the Chomskyean approach of looking for the mathematical representation of linguistic rules. The need to systematise the rules results in a conception of grammar as an algorithm. These meta-descriptions were put forward as a theory of mind by Chomsky. This additional assumption regarding grammar is superfluous and extraneous to the concerns of the linguist.

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"... a custom, practice, fashion or vogue. It can be local or widespread, obsolete or current, rural or urban, vulgar or academic. There cannot be a misusage anymore than there can be a miscustom or a misvogue."25

In short, the contrast 'use' versus 'utility' and 'usage' is the contrast between the knowing-how one is acquainted with and the objects available for empirical investigation. Having made such a distinction, Ryle puts forward the thesis that the investigation of the 'utility' and the 'usage' presuppose a knowledge of the 'use'.26 In order to describe the utility of something one has to relate it to an identified purpose as a means to an end. The 'means' could be a consumable object or an instrument wielded in an action, but in either case one requires to relate the object to an action in order to characterise something as a 'means'. In other words, it is only in relation to some action under some description, in which an object occurs as a part of action, that we can identify something as an instrument. The identification of an object as a hammer, for instance, is parasitic on the identification of the action of hammering; to give an account 25

CPU 308. "... there are inconveniences in talking much of the uses of expressions. People are liable to construe 'use' in one of the ways which English certainly does permit, namely as a synonym of 'utility' or 'usefulness'. They then suppose that to discuss the use of an expression is to discuss what it is useful for or how useful it is. .. But it is easy to see that discussing the use (versus uselessness) of something is quite different from discussing the use (versus misuse) of it, i.e., the way, method or manner of using it. The female driver may learn what is the utility of a sparking plug, but learning this is not learning how to operate with a sparking-plug. She does not have or lack skills or competences with sparking plugs, as she does with steering wheels, coins, words and knives. Her sparking-plugs manage themselves; or rather they are not managed at all. They just function automatically, until they cease to function. They are useful, even indispensable to her. But she does not manage or mismanage them. ... Questions about the use of an expression are often,.. questions about the way to operate with it; not the questions about what the employer of it needs it for. They are How questions, not What-for questions. This latter sort of question can be asked, but it is seldom necessary to ask it, since the answer is usually obvious. In a foreign country, I do not ask what a centime or a peseta is for; what I do ask is how many of them I have to give for a certain article, or how many of them I am to expect to get in exchange for a half-crown. 1 want to know what its purchasing power is; not that it is for making purchases with. Much more insidious than this confusion between the way of operating with something and its usefulness, is the confusion between a 'use', i.e., a way of operating with something, and a 'usage'. ... A usage is a custom, practice, fashion or vogue. ... There cannot be a misusage any more than there can be a miscustom or a misvogue. The methods of discovering linguistic usages are the methods of philologists. By contrast, a way of operating with a razor blade, a word, a traveller's cheque or a canoe paddle is a technique, knack or method. Learning it is learning how to do the thing; it is not finding out the sociological generalities, not even sociological generalities about other people who do similar or other things with razor blades, words, traveller's cheques or canoe paddles. ... The description of a conjuring trick is not the description of all the conjurers who perform or have performed that trick. On the contrary, in order to describe the possessors of the trick, we should have already to be able to give some sort of description of the trick itself. ... Descriptions of usages presuppose descriptions of uses, i.e., ways or techniques of doing the thing, the more or less widely prevailing practice of doing which constitutes the usage." CPU 307-8)

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of this action is neither describing the object identified as the hammer, nor describing the purpose; or function served by hammering. Similarly, the 'use' of the word is neither those (natural) qualities by virtue of which it becomes useful, nor what it is for - the social functions it may serve. Anything can be identified as an instrument and in that case it can be characterised in terms of its utility. But to do this one must first specify the action schema. Thus utility descriptions are parasitic on an acquaintance with 'use'. A similar situation obtains in the case of 'usage'. To investigate the usage of words is to find out the habits, customs, manners or fashions prevailing in a community. One can attribute a custom or habit to an individual or group in either of these two ways: (a) one can say that there is a preponderance or frequency of an action type in an individual or among a group; or (b) one can assert that there is Ά manner of performing the action discernible in an individual or a group. In either case one requires to identify the action-type in question before identifying either its frequent occurrence or the manner of performing it. That is, investigations into usage presuppose identifying something as a language-use - the proportional prevalence of which or the manner of which constitutes the 'usage'. Thus 'usage' description presupposes acquaintance with the 'use'. 4.3.1 Ryle's Action Theoretical Approach I will interpret the point of the thesis, viz. the investigation of utility and usage presuppose a knowledge of the use, to be the following two, differently nuanced but equivalent assertions: (i) the know-how is not of a sort that can be conceived as an object available for empirical investigation, (ii) reflecting on the know-how one is acquainted with cannot be conceived as describing it as an object. The elucidation of these assertions is in effect an elucidation of the distinction between speech and language. For the arguments for differentiating speech from language: are also the arguments for differentiating the empirical enquiry from the 'reflection on speech', and this is equivalent to an elucidation of speech as a knowing-how. In our dealing with the world, we use words or expressions to distinguish between things (features and events included) as well as to describe and argue about them. The capacity exhibited in such activities can be referred to as 'speech-skill'. Ryle himself uses the term 'speech1 indistinguishably as referring to performance as well as to the schema, but it is helpful to use separate terms.27 'Speech-skill' can be understood both in a generic sense - as our Ryle often characterises 'language' as the 'wherewithal' to speak, and 'speech' as the live dicta (CPU 408), and this may make one misread the point of the contrast as of conceiving the relation of 'speech' to 'language' as token to type. This is obviously not the case; for Ryle's interest is on sayings and arguments that can be repeated and uttered on different occasions and in different languages by

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general capacity to talk - and in a specific sense - the skill pertaining to a particular field of discourse. The latter can be further distinguished into the capacity for day-to-day discourse and the capacity for semi-technical and technical discourse of the different academic disciplines. 'Speech' - the exercise of speech-skill - as used here can be understood (though for the moment not necessary) to include not merely verbal expressions, but also pictures and other non-verbal ways of representing. Further, Operating with the concepts', 'speech', 'using the word' and 'using the expression1 - all these are used synonymously here to designate the exercise of speech-skill. Kyle's main concern is to demarcate an activity that is different both from exercising speech-skill in order to say something about a domain and conceiving such an exercise itself as a domain to be described. This latter comes under Ryle's term 'language', i.e. speech conceived as an object-domain that can be talked about is 'language1. This is the domain of linguistics. Enquiries in linguistics, as in any science, are actions of identifying, describing and arguing with the expressions (i.e., operating with concepts) about objects, events, and processes, i.e., it is exercising the speech-skill in relation to a particular domain, here, the domain of language.28 In order to get at the required notion of exploration of speech-skill we can distinguish between two kinds of interest in a 'saying': (i) interest in the saying in order to know about that which is said, i.e., speech as a means for the practical orientation in a day-to-day or theoretical context (pragmatic exercise); (ii) Interest in the saying in order to specify the saying-action itself (reflective exercise). In the second sort of interest, one is exercising the capacity of operating with a concept, not in order to say something about a domain, but to discern what an operation with a particular concept involves. The thesis proposed here is that this reflective exercise of speech is different from an empirical enquiry into language - whether conceived as an enquiry into the structure of language systems or as an enquiry into the use of languages in social contexts.29 This thesis involves two components. First, a more general assertion that reflecting on the know-how one is acquainted with cannot be conceived as describing it as an object. Second, an assertion that there are certain specificities of speech conceived as a skill from which certain implications follow as to the method of reflection on speech. The second assertion will be elucidated in chapter 5. different people; such sayings can not be equated with 'language1. This beomes further evident in the use of the analogy of the techniques to elucidate the 'use of a word' - a concept introduced to elaborate 'speech1 and not 'language'. " Speech ordinarily used - whether in connection with day-to-day life or in a specialised enquiry - can be objectified into a domain making it amenable to a study through operating with (meta-) concepts. Thus there could be different orders of speech corresponding to different orders of objects. That is, language approached by either structuralist or pragmatic school of linguistics. What linguists call pragmatic approach takes language to be something to be investigated by correlating it with the context in which it is used, but 'context' is conceived as available for empirical investigation.

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4.4 Knowing How vs. Empirical Action-Theoretical Approaches The thesis, the know-how is not an object open for empirical investigation can be elucidated by counterposing it to three strategies of conceiving actions prevalent in empirical disciplines. Let me term these strategies 'intentionalist', 'behaviourist' and 'functionalist' respectively: Intentionalism conceives an action as an expression of 'intentions' or 'meanings' or 'beliefs'. Behaviourism conceives an action as a social habit in contrast to biological instinct, but like the latter it is a disposition available for empirical methods of observation and theorising. In functionalism an action is conceived as something that fulfils social needs or 'functions', and therefore, to enquire into actions is to have a scheme of social functions in terms of which one can interpret the behaviour to be of this or that sort of action. I will interpret Ryle's objections to the 'ideas' or 'meanings' for the specification of speech as a demarcation from intentionalism, his objections to the equation of enquiry into the use of words with the enquiry into the 'usage' of them as a demarcation from behaviourism, and his objections to the equation of 'use' of words with their 'utility' as a demarcation from functionalism. To give a focus, I will discuss how 'rule', in connection with an action, might be conceived in terms of the above three approaches. Intentionalism can be embodied in either a scientistic or a hermeneutic framework. The modular cognitive theories are examples for the former, certain approaches of social anthropology for the latter.30 In the former case, the 'meanings' appear in two ways: at the level of phenomena to be investigated they are conceived as entities discernible through a hypotheticodeductive method, and at the level of research as theoretical entities to be postulated to explain data. 'Representation' - not to be confused with its use in this dissertation - is the term used in this context in cognitivist literature. In the hermeneutic case, meanings are supposed to be available only to the subjects of action, and to discern it, a method for empathising with the subjects of action is enunciated - called variously 'field observation', 'participatory observation'etc.31 Within the framework of intentionalism, rules have to be conceived as knowledge possessed by the agent, which he applies when he brings about an action. Such rules could be conceived of either as norms or as procedures, but in either case they have to be thought of as something available to and wielded by an agent. Intentionalism requires as a complement to it a voluntarism - in the sense of a conception of an agent as the source of power to initiate and gestalt an action in accordance with a plan. However, an action need not 30 3

Cf. J.A.Fodor, (1984) and for the hermeneutic approach, see Winch P. (1958). ' Winch's account is only z. theoretical formulation of what was the part of the training practice in the discipline of Cultural Anthropology for a long time.

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necessarily be a deliberate performance in accordance with some explicitly laid out rules or plan. More important, while speaking of rules in the context of specification of an action, what interests us is not the bringing about aspect but a criterial aspect, i.e., the aspect of the limits and scope by virtue of which something is a particular action. The point of saying that an action is a social practice constituted by a set of rules is to say that we can identify an action by specifying some constitutive rules; for this purpose the considerations such as whether it is possessed by an agent as 'knowledge of and applied by him in producing an action are irrelevant. But this does not mean that the criterial aspect can be formulated without consideration for a participant perspective. One of the basic questions we are confronted with while approaching social study is: what is it to take into account the participatory perspective in conceiving the criterial aspect of an action?32 Whereas the intentionalist answer to this question is inconsequential, both behavioural and functionalist approaches effectively reduce the criterial aspect to the descriptive aspect: they conceive 'rule1 as an observational category - either as the data observed and generalised, or as an instrument of empirical research. Behaviourism can conceive rules, whether generative or constitutive, only in terms of the observed regularity. Thus it does not really distinguish between 'rule1 and 'law', though a superficial distinction can be maintained by making the latter term refer to the observed regularity in nature and the former to that in society. However, observing regularity presupposes some specific differentiating schema in terms of which things are identified, distinguished and their regular co-occurrence noted. In connection with action this would mean a characterisation of an actor - individual or group - in terms of frequency of doing something (predication of an action) or as having a particular style in doing that something. But this presupposes both the availability of the identity of the subject of attribution and the action-type that is attributed. The situation is similar in the functionalist approach. Here 'action' is conceived as a theoretical construct: it is defined in terms of an identified behaviour fulfilling some identified functions. The functions can be the conceptual instruments of an empirical researcher defined prior to his empirical observation, or more particular ones identified in terms of such conceptual instruments. 'Rule' presumably is a procedure of construction of the action from more elementary elements; thus it is a category to co-ordinate the identified functions with identified behaviour - both verbal and non-verbal, in the case of speech this would mean defining the speech in terms of the social function it fulfils, but one must already have a scheme for identifying the social functions as well as for identifying the speech-behaviour. 2

The debate concerning Peter Winch's thesis concerns this issue. Cf. Wilson B.R. (1970) for a record of this debate in the 70s.

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One can look at the structuralist approach to social study as a combination Of functionalism and intentionalism with a further element added to it, i.e. the recognition that actions are related in such a way that the boundaries of one action against another are functions of rules in a constitutive sense. The constitution through 'rules', it is asserted, is what distinguishes the institutional facts from that of natural facts. The handy and acclaimed example is that of games: they owe their existence to 'rules' in the sense of accepted conventions in accordance with which a game proceeds; a range of possible moves of the chess figures in a play are functions of a set of constitutive rules. Similarly, social practices into which one grows are constituted through a set of rules, even though they differ from games in one respect: most of the social institutions are not explicitly instituted through some linguistically formulated rules as in the case of games. This lack of explicit rules is explained by structuralism by postulating the 'implicit' rule system. Social practice is conceived as owing to the conventions implicitly agreed upon or socially enforced in order to fulfil certain needs. Intentionalism appears here in the form of the notion of 'implicit agreement' or 'social agency of enforcement1: folk-psychology, tradition, or custom are attributed the status of societal subjects and the social institutions are explained as the result of their agency. Functionalism appears in the assumption that structures are the result of some basic needs rooted in human nature. This structuralist approach, however, cannot be applied to formulate the rules involved in speech-practice; for there is one important difference between speech as a practice a.nd other institutional practices: speech practice is a precondition to other rule-constituted social practices in two ways: (i) a practice can be and most often is prior to the grasping of it in terms of a set of constitutive rules; the formulation of such rules requires the exercise of speech skill and thus speech practice is a pre-requisite for formulating the constitutive rules of other practices; (ii) A set of 'primitive' practices can be the logical precondition for the rise of and the existence of the institutions in question; thus one can argue that speech practice is a pre-condition to all other institutional practices. To put it differently, the availability of the practice of sign-actions is a pre-condition for both the existence of other social practices and for the description or formulation of rules constituting these practices. This fact precludes the possibility of conceiving the constitutive rules of speech in the same sense as the constitutive rules of other social institutions. Of course, one can argue that ordinary language is such a practice that it is possible to formulate the rules of this practice within this form of the practice itself. For instance, the grammarians have formulated the rules of grammar in the same language for which that grammar is written. But the example of grammar is misleading. Grammar, as indicated earlier, is concerned with the acceptability rule arid as such presupposes a set of understanding actions. Writing a grammar for a natural language requires one to conceive it as an

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object about which descriptions can be prepared. Natural language, if taken as a social practice, is a complex intermingling of different levels of speech which is often distinguished into object- and meta-languages. Writing a grammar can be considered as formulating rules for an object language through a meta-language. This can be done by introducing two logically distinct stages, first, considering some practices as acceptable and others as not acceptable, thereby demarcating language as an object from what is not language. In the second stage one can produce a set of rules that generate only what belongs to language. But the first step above involves a set of understanding actions, and our concern is to discern the rules in accordance with which understanding takes place. Ryle speaks of a 'rule1 as "anything against which the faults are adjudged to be faults",33 but to judge sense-faults in contrast to language-faults is not measuring up the performance to a standard (as in the case of grammar), but rather to discover the constraints themselves that demarcate 'sense' from 'non-sense1 and one sense from another. In other words, the notion of 'logical grammar' is a means to indicate that there are constraints within which we can use words to say something, and that the transgression of those constraints result in non-sensical utterances or a sense other than that intended. The point of drawing attention to this is not so much to indicate a domain to be described, but rather to derive certain procedures for instituting new concepts as well as understanding speech not yet understood, i.e. 'rule', 'constraints', 'limit' etc., have a directive function and not a descriptive function, 'directive' not in the way in which a model for empirical research is directive but in a way warning sign-posts are directive. In short, the rule that can be formulated in a meta-language is of a sort quite different from the 'rules' of a practice or the skill that can be discovered while exercising that very skill. Whereas to formulate a rule in a metalanguage is to give a' description of a (second order) object, noting down contours of the knowing-how one practises while practising it is not description of an object. This last statement is the crux of Ryle's conception of philosophy; it centres around the question whether reflecting on a knowinghow is describing it as an object. 4.5 Object-Description vs. Object-Construction To give a description of anything, we require to have already identified it as an entity of a particular sort demarcating it from features accidentally occurring together with it. That is, a criterion to distinguish what belongs to the object ("essential" to it) and what does not is presupposed in any attempt at 33 CPU 410.

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description. The process of evolving such a criterion - not necessarily identical with formulating it verbally - we can call Object-construction'. In order to say that reflection on a knowing-how is description of it as an object, one needs to have first settled the question whether object-construction can be conceived as a process of observation and description, i.e. whether it is an activity of empirical enquiry. It is possible to identify two answers to this question: I will designate one answer 'foundationalist' (or 'fundamentalist') and the other 'constructionist'. The former assumes that there is some foundational or basic level of objects out of which other objects are constructed. Consequently, object-construction can be reduced to empirical theory building, i.e. there is no fundamental difference between object-construction and object description. This answer is within the object or perception-oriented approach as developed in chapter 1. Depending upon which scientific domain one wants to make foundational, the foundationalist would conceive the philosophic task as parasitic on the results (or concerns) of that science. 'Linguistic philosophy' conceived on these lines would be the one which asserts the language-objects to be foundational, and therefore philosophy would be parasitic upon linguistics. Applied to the idea of reflection on speech, this would imply that there are language-objects out of which speech that is to be reflected upon can be constructed. We are dependent upon the results of linguistic science for understanding the nature of the ultimate objects out of which speech has to be constructed. This would mean that building a linguistic theory is prior to and a necessary pre-condition for the clarification of speech. The constructionist answer, on the other hand, is that there is no basic level of objects and consequently there is a fundamental difference between objectdescription and object-construction. Thus reflection on a knowing how cannot be reduced to object-description. This last sentence, it is necessary to emphasise, should not be taken to imply that reflection is equivalent to objectconstruction: the constructionist approach not only rejects the assumption that reflection can be reduced to object-description, but also that reflection can be equated with object-construction; reflection may be, but need not necessarily be, aimed at constructing an object. In contrast, the foundationalist approach involves twofold reductions - the reduction of reflection to object-construction and that in turn to objectdescription. This would mean that reflection is a process of somehow getting hold of some primary objects and corresponding designators (nominators) out of which complex discourse is constructed. As a result it depends on a universalist assumption that in the ideal case the technical terms refer to the objects unequivocally, and the contextual help needed to understand the terms is only a practical necessity which in principle can be dispensed with. For the constructionist approach, however, the context is indispensable to any discourse, and objects and designators available in a context of discourse are

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the results of the accomplished object construction. Reflection is not a process of going back to more primary objects and designators, but rather one of reconstructing objects by introducing the pragmatically oriented, contextually understandable distinctions. Ryle's approach can be identified as constructionist and the main criticisms against him are found levelled from a foundationalist view-point. As already mentioned, the latter conceives the philosophic task as parasitic on some science or the other, the choice depending upon which scientific domain one wants to make foundational. To bring out the contours of a constructionist stance as against a foundationalist one, I will consider in the following pages the criticisms levelled against Ryle based on a view that philosophy is parasitic upon linguistics. 4.5.1 A Statement of Katz-Fodor 'Critique of OLP In their programmatic introduction that is meant to herald a "new approach to traditional problems in the philosophy of language" Katz and Fodor34 (here onwards KF) identify two "dominant schools" that their new approach is meant to supersede. One of them they call Ordinary language philosophy' (referred to as OLP hereafter), of which Ryle is mentioned as a representative, and the other 'positivism'. The linguistic analysis of both is taken to be an attempt at formulating a theory of language, and the difference between the two is identified as a difference in focus of such a theory. "For the ordinary-language philosopher a theory of language is first and foremost a theory of words; the philosophy of language differs from lexicography in its techniques and methods but not in its goals. For the positivists, on the other hand, a theory of language is in the first instance a theory of sentences and sentence structures".35

This identification of the two approaches of linguistic philosophy, in terms of an interest in the 'dictionary entry' in one case and in syntax in the other case, also results in KF taking philosophical controversy regarding the role 34

Cf. The introduction by the editors in J.A. Fodor & J.J.Katz (eds.) (1964), p 1-18. (In the rest of the foot notes, this article will be referred to as SL). The programmatic points of this introductory article are almost verbally repeated in the introduction by J.J. Katz in his introduction to the collection edited by him, Philosophy of Linguistics, OUP 1985. Therefore it is justified to examine the earlier seminal work rather than the later literature. Katz and Fodor's critique of Ryle is not meant as a detailed study of Ryle as such, but as an instance of what they identify as Ordinary language philosophy'. However, they do refer to Ryle's articles of 'Use, Usage and Meaning' and Ordinary Language' (see discussion and footnote on page 11 of SL) to support their contention that OLP neglects to give an account of syntax, and mention the use theory of meaning in the same context. This justifies my taking their criticism of what they call OLP as a critique of Ryle and showing how their critique is based on a misreading of those two articles. 35 SL,p.3.

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and function of the logistic systems for a conceptual enquiry to be a controversy regarding how natural languages need to be studied. "The ordinary-language and positivist approaches present incompatible conceptions of the nature and study of language. Positivists contend that the structure of a natural language is illuminatingly like that of a logistic system and advocate that natural languages be studied through the construction of logistic systems. Ordinary language philosophers deny that a logistic system can capture the richness and complexity of a natural language. Language they contend is an extremely complicated form of social behaviour and should be studied through the detailed analysis of individual words and expressions. Thus positivists tend to emphasise the need for rational reconstruction or reformulation at precisely those points where ordinary language philosophers are most inclined to insist upon the facts of usage."36

It is evident from the above that the identification of the philosophical task with that of empirical linguistics makes the authors confuse OLP's key notion, 'use of a word', with the "facts of usage".37 This confusion leads them further to "regard the ultimate aim of a use theory of meaning as that of writing a dictionary which provides the correct entry for each word in the language."

Having made such a characterisation, they charge against the philosophical analysis of OLP that (i) it is aprioristic - it does not undertake any systematic empirical investigation of the use of words, (ii) it lacks theory - both in the sense of not providing a systematic theory of language and in the sense of deficiency of systematic definitions of, and the lack of criteria for, the application of the key notions it makes use of in linguistic analysis such as use, misuse, and rules of use, (iii) it appeals to intuition about one's own speechhabits about these key notions. These deficiencies, KF suggest, arise due to the fact that the "methods and theories of linguistics are not made the basis for philosophising about language".39

Linguistics is explained further as having the task of "reconstructing the skill of understanding and speaking of common speak:ers of a language community". 40

SL, p. 1-2. Cf. Ryle's distinction between 'use' and 'usage' and his denial that he is concerned with usage, CPU 308-10. 38 SL,p. 12 39 SL,p.l. 40 Cf. Ibid., p. 12 : "But the skills the fluent speaker exercises in using a dictionary to understand sentences constitute an implicit theory of the syntactic and semantic structure of the language, and it is such a theory which ordinary language philosophy fails to consider. What is needed is a

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The word 'reconstruction'41 as used in this passage is meant to convey the task of explaining the fact of speaking and understanding by the fluent speakers of a community; this in turn is understood as the task of providing a theory of language that includes (a) writing a correct 'dictionary entry' for each word in the language, (b) specification of Organising principles' of language,42 i.e., to specify the syntax that provides for "the compositional mechanisms in language" through which sentence meanings are generated by word-meanings. In other words the 'reconstruction' of the skill of the fluent speakers of a community is to write a grammar (- understood in an extended sense, inclusive of semantics or 'dictionary entry' & syntax or 'compositional mechanisms' - of a language. The central point to note is that this critique of OLP hinges on identifying speech-skill with an object-domain, natural language, and on conceiving the reconstruction of the speech-skill as a task of providing an empirical theory about natural languages. We can therefore consider KF's criticisms in terms of two issues: (i) in what sense is Ryle interested in the Ordinary language', and is that interest equivalent to an interest in natural languages? (ii) in what sense is a philosophical theory a reconstruction of a skill, and is it the same as providing an empirical theory about an object-domain? 4.5.2 Ordinary Language', 'Scientific Language', and 'Natural Language' First, the word 'language' as used in Ordinary language' or 'scientific language' is ambiguous and at any rate differs from its use in 'natural language'. In the case of the former, it is often Ryle's 'speech' and can be reformulated as Ordinary use of words' and 'scientific use of words'. 'Natural language', on the other hand, cannot be recast in this way. It is used as a contrast to 'artificial' or 'formal' language, and is meant as a designation of an object describable by empirical methods. Thus to take the interest in Ordinary language' to be an interest in natural language is to confuse things, and Ryle's introduction of the notion of speech as against language is meant exactly to avoid this confusion. reconstruction of these skills, for it is clear that they involve not only non-lexical facts about the language, but more significantly, the organising principles of the language. Anyone who learns a foreign language discovers that to know a language is to know more than correct dictionary entries for its words. No matter how good a dictionary is, it can tell us nothing about these skills, since they are concerned with relating the meaning of a sentence to the meaning of the words appearing in it." The word 'reconstruction' is introduced by Carnap to refer to the philosophical task of analysis. It is meant as a task of clarifying thoughts and implications of certain assertions rather than excavating the implicit theories as KF use. Cf. Gerhardus D. (1977) 4 ^ SL 11: "A solution to the problem of explicating the compositional mechanisms in language requires not only that we be able to characterise the meaning of words of the language, but also that we be able to describe the function which determines the meaning of a sentence on the basis of its components."

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The same confusion is at the root of the charge often levelled at Ryle that he overlooks the need for scientific or technical terms and concentrates on Ordinary language1.43 The charge is based upon a misunderstanding of the sense in which he is an Ordinary language philosopher'. Ryle himself points out that his interest in Ordinary language1 is an interest in Ordinary use of expressions' - where the stress is on 'use' rather than on 'expression'. He further explains that Ordinary1 has to be understood as a contrast to 'non-stock use' rather than to 'scientific use' of an expression, and indicates that "A philosopher who maintained that certain philosophical questions are questions about the ordinary or stock uses of certain expressions would not... be committing himself to the view that they are questions about the uses of ordinary or colloquial expressions."44

and further "the learning and teaching the ordinary ... expression, just as learning and teaching the standard use of an instrument, need not be though it can be, learning and teaching the use of a house-hold utensil... "45

That is, an ordinary or stock use of an expression is that learnt as part of learning an activity either of the day-to-day sort or of something of a specialised nature, and therefore such uses can appear in the context either of day-to-day living or of a specialised discipline. An urge to look at the functioning of Ordinary language' is then an urge to look at the function of an expression in the coni:ext of a skill of which it is part.46 The skill in question can be of a mundane or a scientific variety. Further, the point of objecting to a non-stock use is not that such uses are to be necessarily avoided, but to ask: what action is it that is performed by the non-stock use? An action is a socially available practice or something introducible within such a practice. Especially in the case of speech-skill it is such that one use of a word is connected with every other use in a constitutive way, and altering in one case results in the destabilisation of a whole lot of other uses. In the light of the explication of the 'use' given earlier, it is evident that the call to look at the use of a word is a call to reflect on the commonly shared skill. Therefore doubts regarding the non-stock use are a step in a process of reflecting the logical inter-connections between the available uses and the suggested non-stock use.

43

See J.J.Smart in Pitcher and Wood (1970) p. 283-306. CPU 303-4 45 CPU 303. 4 " Cf. CP II 305: "Putting the stress on the word 'use' helps to bring out the important fact that an enquiry is an enquiry not into other features or properties of the word .... but only into what is done with it, or with anything else with which we do the same thing. That is why it is misleading to classify philosophical questions as linguistic questions" 44

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4.5.3 How to Understand the Task of Linguistic Analysis It is pertinent to ask why KF overlook the explicit discussion by Ryle of the difference between the Ordinary language' of his concern and the 'natural language' that interests a linguist. The answer becomes evident if we identify KF as espousing an object-approach. It assumes that any exploration is necessarily an object-enquiry, and therefore to speak of investigating speech is necessarily to conceive speech as an object-domain. This explains why KF attribute to OLP the belief that "language .. is an extremely complicated social behaviour"47 and conceive the linguistic analysis of the OLP variety as a haphazard attempt to provide a theory of natural language. This erasure of the distinction between speech as a skill and natural language as an objectdomain, and the corresponding distinction between reflection and objectenquiry, has implications for one's understanding of what a philosophical 'theory' is like. As will be shown below in 4.5.4, it is a particular understanding of the concept of 'theory' that makes KF perceive Ryle's way of doing (linguistic-) philosophy as apriori, and as an appeal to subjective speechhabits.48 From the point of view of KF, philosophical analysis of discourse is equivalent to providing a description of the sentences occurring in the discourse in terms of a theory of language in which the sentences are couched; i.e. it is an activity of meta-description of an object-level discourse. Thus there is no difference between the task of a linguist and that of a philosopher, even if one can construe a difference in their focus - a linguist's interest lies predominantly in providing a general theory of language, a philosopher's (of KF persuasion) in specific sentences that are of particular concern. Thus a philosopher is an applied linguist who applies a general theory of language for the specification of the meaning of particular words in particular sayings. But surely there is discourse in the process of building linguistic theory, and surely often elucidation of this discourse is called for. Should this elucidation be an application of a theory of language provided by linguistics, and make available the description of sentences occurring in such discourse? KF probably think so. At any rate it is in line with this that KF tend to identify linguistic philosophy with the philosophy of linguistics. They write: "The theory of language implicit in current work in linguistics deals with problems that have traditionally concerned philosophers of language, but it does so without falling victim either to the positivist's preconceptions about the structure of language and his lack of empirical controls or to the ordinary-language philosopher's illicit appeal to intuitive judgements and his unsystematic orientation.

48 SL -P·is1·related to the nature of heuristic theories. See section 4.5.4. This

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It thus provides ... tie basis for a new conception of the nature of philosophy of language. Given a scientifically mature field of linguistics, the philosophy of language can be conceived as a discipline concerned with the analysis of the concepts, theories, and methodology of linguistics. On this conception, the philosophy of language is the philosophy of linguistics, ... It has perhaps been because of the lack of a viable alternative to positivist and ordinary-language philosophies of language that the shortcomings of both these approaches have not led to their abandonment. The conception of philosophy of language just suggested provides such an alternative, insofar as the linguistics offers a satisfactory theory of the grammatical and semantic structure of natural languages."49 Here, "the theory of language implicit in the current work in linguistics" is said, on the one hand, to provide "the basis for a new conception of the nature of philosophy of language" and, on the other, to deal with "the problems that have traditionally concerned the philosophers of language". It is not clear from the above what these problems are; nor is it clear what 'philosophy of language1 prior to the advent of KF's "new conception of philosophy of language" is meant to designate. From the identification of 'positivism1 and Ordinary-language philosophy' as two approaches of philosophy of language, one can take KF to mean by that term linguistic philosophy as practised by members of the Vienna circle and people influenced by them, on the one side, and in Oxford by those influenced by Wittgenstein's later philosophy, on the other side. But 'linguistic philosophy' in this sense has to be distinguished both from empirical enquiry into language and theorising and reflecting about the nature and domain of linguistic science. The latter activity - which can be termed as the philosophy of linguistics, if conducted in the style of linguistic philosophy - has the function of elucidating the discourse in one science: linguistics. This elucidation of discourse cannot be made parasitic on linguistics: an elucidation of a discourse that is meant to institute a domain of language and a theory about it cannot be conducted on the basis of that very theory, because such a theory does not yet exist; even if a person conducting the elucidation may be influenced in his operations by several theories both from extant linguistics and elsewhere, an elucidation cannot be conceived as an application of a theory provided by linguistics. To provide a programme of empirical investigation of language is a task within the philosophy of linguistics. For instance, as an answer to the question of the philosopher of linguistics, one may suggest that language has to be looked upon as an instrument: what serves as an instrument is not a physical object but a semiotic artefact. To formulate such a suggestion into a model for empirical research and clarify how a semiotic artefact differs from a physical _____ .

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object as an instrument can be a task of philosophy of linguistics. Such concerns are different from the objectives of Ryle. This has already been shown by a discussion of how the 'speech-language1 contrast as made by Ryle differs from that of Saussure and Chomsky both in motive and content. Similarly, whereas the variety of 'theory of meaning' that KF think of is that of writing an empirically researched 'ideal dictionary' along with providing a set of rules to combine words into sentences, Kyle's 'use theory of meaning' is not meant at all to specify a model for empirical investigation. 4.5.4 Nomological and Heuristic Theories The crucial problem here revolves around the notion of 'theory', and it is worthwhile going into it in some detail. At least two different kinds of concerns can be differentiated when KF and Chomsky, from whom KF derive their inspiration, speak of theory. First, there is theory in the nomological sense, i.e. in the sense of a statement to the effect that certain features obtain in the phenomenon in such a way that certain other features are causally related to them. Consequently, providing a theory is necessarily enunciating a set of propositions on the basis of which a certain other set of statements having the status of data concerning a phenomenon are deducible. The notion of 'data' or 'facts' that can corroborate or falsify a theory is an essential aspect of the understanding of 'theory' in the nomological sense. This differs from a second sense of theory, as for instance, when Chomsky speaks of linguistic competence as against performance and suggests that linguistic theory has to concern itself with competence. Let me call this the theory in the 'heuristic' sense. When one uses a schema to demarcate and identify a domain of investigation, one is not providing a theory in the nomological sense. For instance, consider the following two opposing view-points concerning what linguistic theory is a theory about. Chomsky suggests that linguistic theory "offers an explanation for the intuition of the native speaker on the basis of an empirical hypothesis concerning the innate predisposition of the child to develop a certain kind of theory to deal with the evidence presented to him." 50 As against this Halliday suggests that "linguistics is a branch of sociology. Language is part of the social system, and there is no need to interpose a psychological level of interpretation." 51 These are certainly theoretical suggestions, but they are not nomological statements, because they cannot be falsified in any straightforward sense by 50 51

Chomsky, (1968) p. 104. Parrel, H.( 1974), p. 85.

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adducing evidence. However, this does not mean that suggestions to construe the domain for a discipline in a particular way are of an arbitrary character. To use a term of Quines, there is an objective pull52 in our selection of the demarcating schema for the construction of a domain of investigation: the range of choice of models is constrained by the 'experience' or 'intuitions' of the participants of a practice - the research-practice, or more generally, the social milieu where the discipline is practised. This should not be taken as a sociological statement, but rather as an epistemic one: a suggestion for the demarcation of a domain depends, for its intelligibility, pertinency and for its character of striking as interesting, on the collective experience of the participants who are the addressees of the suggestion. The phrases such as 'the wisdom of the community of researchers' or 'common intuitions of mankind' are often used to express this realisation of the epistemic predicament.53 The problem arises when one attempts to specify this objective pull much more precisely. The question that needs to be posed is whether theoretical activity, in the sense of suggesting, elaborating and justifying a model that explicitly or implicitly makes use of the practices one is a participant of, i.e. whether the accumulated experiences available in one's milieu or society can be conceived as building a system of nomological statements. An affirmative answer to this question seems to underlie Chomsky's and KFs line of thinking. Chomsky suggests that a generative grammar can be looked at from the point of view of offering a theory of grammar of a natural language or as part of a more general linguistic theory which is purported to be a hypothesis for a phenomenon conceived in a more encompassing fashion. Accordingly a generative grammar is subject to two different kinds of justification. "There are two respects in which one can speak of 'justifying a generative grammar'. On one level (that of descriptive adequacy), the grammar is justified to the extent that it correctly describes its object, namely, the linguistic intuition - the tacit competence - of the native speaker. In this sense, the grammar is justified on external grounds, on grounds of correspondence to linguistic fact. On much deeper and hence much more rarely attainable level (that of explanatory adequacy), a grammar is justified to the extent that it is a principled descriptively adequate system, in that the linguistic theory with which it is associated selects this grammar over others, given primary linguistic data with which all are compatible. In this sense, the grammar is justified on internal grounds, on grounds of its relation to a linguistic theory thai: constitutes an explanatory hypothesis about the form of language as such. The problem of internal justification - of explanatory adequacy -

52

Cf. Quine, W.V.O., ((I960) Ch. 1, § 2. Quine's position is similar to that of Chomsky et al, in fact it is likely that Chomsky acquired his conception of theory from the milieu where the dominating influence as far as the philosophy of science was concerned was that of Quine. The concept 'community of researchers' is introduced by Peirce, 'the common intuitions of mankind' is a pet phrase of A.N. Whituhead.

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is essentially the problem of constructing a theory of language acquisition, an account of the specific innate abilities that make this achievement possible."54 Both these kinds of justification of generative grammar are in fact conceived in terms of 'theory' in the nomological sense: descriptive adequacy takes the particular language for which the grammar is written as the phenomenon, while explanatory adequacy takes the fact of language acquisition by the human child as the phenomenon. In the latter case, the generative grammar is part of a larger hypothesis, which assumes both the existence of certain language universals and the exploitation of them by the language-learning child as a means of acquiring competence in a particular language of its environment. Explanatory adequacy requires the generative grammar to be such that it is internally consistent with other propositions of linguistic theory, but this linguistic theory itself must correspond to facts conceived at a different level, i.e. linguistic theory is put forward as a hypothesis regarding the phenomenon of the human child learning language. Thus, in both cases theory is conceived as providing hypotheses that have to be corroborated by facts. Though here there is no hint that a theory in linguistics has to be taken as part of a still larger venture attempting to provide a system of truths about all phenomena conceived as a universal domain, that is exactly what Fodor makes out of it. His stance is that every assertion is about a universal domain of which different disciplines build partial theories. This is what one can discern from his polemics against what he considers as the wrong view concerning linguistic theory. "According to the latter [i.e. wrong view], ... there is a proprietary body of data (the speakenTiearer's linguistic intuitions according to the most popular version) such that, apriori, the facts that a true linguistic facts corresponds to are exhausted by those data, and such that any theory that predicts the same such data are ipso facto 'empirically equivalent'. Whereas, according to the Right View, any facts about the use of language, or about how it is learned, or about the neurology of speaker/hearers, or for that matter, about the weather on Mars, could in principle, be relevant to the choice between competing linguistic theories. This is because, according to the Right View, linguistics is embedded in psychology (it offers a partial theory of the capacities and behaviours of speaker/hearers) and is thus sensitive to whatever information about psychology of speaker/hearers we are able to bring to bear. Moreover, sensitive to is, in this respect, a transitive relation: if we get our neurology (or our astronomy) to bear on some part of our psychology, then if that part of our psychology bears on our linguistics, then so too do our neurology and our astronomy.

5

Cf. Chomsky, (1965) the section 'justification of grammars' in the Ch. 'Methodological Preliminaries', reproduced in J.J. Katz (ed.) (1985) p. 104-5.

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It is thus a consequence of the Right View that there is no apriori distinction between linguistic data and psychological data (or indeed, between linguistic data and data of any other kind). 5 What is interesting in this polemics is not so much the issue as to whether there is a data-base decided apriori for linguistic theory, but rather the conception of data thai: Fodor puts forward. Normally we are disposed to take the identity of a discipline as constituted by the very demarcation of its data from the other disciplines. The assertion that there is no distinction between the data of different disciplines can be meaningful only if we consider every discipline as providing partial theories for a universal domain: the postulation of a universal domain makes it possible for us to embed every hypothesis in a larger concentric circle of hypotheses in the same way as in Chomsky's conception the generative grammar is embedded in a larger hypothesis constituting linguistic theory. In such a perspective 'data' are uniform and every piece of data has bearing on every hypothesis. The concentric circles come to an end when the whole scientific repertoire of propositions are conceived as building one system of propositions about a universal domain. (As an aside, this was; the Cartesian dream of founding the sciences on first principles, i.e. of erecting a system of propositions which is both consistent and exhaustive.) In such a perspective, a suggestion to construe a domain for a discipline in a particular way is subject to Chomsky's test of 'explanatory adequacy', i.e. the criterion to select one suggestion against another is its conformity within a larger hypothesis which in turn has to be about the phenomenon conceived in a larger framework (analogous to the relation between the hypothesis for a natural language and the hypothesis for the fact of the child's acquisition of language). In short, a heuristic suggestion has to be considered as a hypothesis in disguise. In other words, the assertion that there are no apriori criteria for demarcating the data relevant for a discipline amounts to saying that suggestions for demarcating a domain is theory in the same sense in which, a hypothesis for explaining data within a field of investigation is, i.e. in the nomological sense. This is related to the objectapproach as elaborated in the first chapter: when a universal domain of objects is assumed, the task of the theory is only to provide descriptions of those objects, and other sorts of theoretical activity are reducible to the objectdescribing variety. To come back to KFs critique of linguistic philosophy, since they believe that theories are necessarily of the object-describing variety and therefore nomological in nature, they expect from OLP a theory of that sort to identify the "crucial notions of use, misuse etc." and complain that they find none. They find none because when Ryle uses such notions, he is concerned with suggesting a heuristic device in order to reflect on our speech and not a 55

J.J. Katz(1985)p. 152.

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hypothesis in order to investigate speech conceived as a domain. A heuristic theory, in contrast to a nomological one, appeals to our knowing how to go about in the world, in order to illuminate a particular point of contention or to exhibit certain connections hitherto not cared for. Consequently heuristic theories are necessarily of a reflective nature, calling on us to look at the way in which we operate with our concepts or notions in different contexts, or to participate in the variation of the uses of our concepts in specific ways with a promise of gaining new insights thereby. The objective pull exerted on heuristic theories is of a different sort than that exerted on the nomological theories. Whereas in the latter we have a common pool of data to corroborate or falsify our suggestions, in heuristic theories the poles of objective pull are either the commonly practised ways of doing things or the readiness of partners to alter those ways of doing things with a probing stance. The 'data' in the nomological context are something available through the mediation of an assumed invariant context, and the addressee has to exert himself only to take notice of 'what is the case'. The knowing how which is appealed to in heuristic theories, on the other hand, is a capacity that has to be set in motion in the addressee of the theory, and he has to be drawn to reflectively exercise that capacity to co-ordinate it with the exercise by the addresser of the suggestion. There is no common context available, rather the context has to be established by making the suggestion understandable. This explains why the use of metaphors and appeal to striking experiences is abundant in heuristic theories; such devices evoke and co-ordinate the exercise of the knowing-how of each of the participants. (That is why the heuristic theories appear untidy, unsystematic and to appeal to the 'intuitions'.) But unlike the nomological theories, the heuristic theories are dependent on the willingness on the part of the addressees to probe and adjust to conceptual shifts, readiness to learn and adopt, even if it is only provisionally, the suggested ways of looking at things. Accordingly, we can term the latter as participant-stance theories, in contrast to the former, which are of the observant-stance variety. In setting up a domain for empirical investigation, and more generally, in any philosophical enterprise, the heuristic theories are at work. One must make a distinction between the procedures of constructing an object-domain and the procedures to explain it, and even though in principle Chomsky et al do not make this distinction, in practice, even they cannot dispense with it. Both the 'competence/performance' distinction and the suggestion that linguistic theory has to be looked at as having the child's acquisition of language as the target phenomenon are heuristic suggestions, and not nomological ones, because, as becomes clear from the counter position made above of Halliday's suggestion, these are not the only options available, nor can the acceptance of them be based on evidence in any straightforward sense. The implicit reduction of the heuristic theories to nomological ones, is as

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much a programmatic one as the alternative to retain the distinction. The argument for one or the other programme, again, has to appeal to the 'intuitions' of the addressees, by showing the different implications of adopting one or the other stance. To be sure, the suggestions to construct the object in a particular way, or any other heuristic suggestion, requires a 'base' which the justification of these suggestions can take recourse to. Our understanding of philosophical theories depend upon our understanding of what kind of 'base' is appealed to, or can be appealed to in heuristic theories. The argument against conceiving 'the commonly available data' as such a base is the following. The conception of 'data' involves the conception of providing description, and providing description presupposes the availability of a common context. But 'context' and Object' are correlative to each other: the suggestion that constitutes an object is also something that constitutes the context. This is because a context is not merely a function of a spatio-temporal location but also that of the learning, history and tradition of the participants of the discourse concerned. That is why, as explained in the previous paragraph, heuristic suggestions have to make use of devices of establishing the invariance of contexts for the specific purpose at hand. Knowing how to go about in the world, on the other hand, does not assume such an invariant con:ext, and is by its very definition context-sensitive, i.e. to learn a know-how i:> simultaneously learning to adjust to new contexts. Further, learning the knowing-how to go about in the world is prior (not merely chronologically, but also logically) to knowing-how to describe it. Therefore, the bases for justification for heuristic theories are the skills of going about in the world that partners in a dialogue possess. Reflection is the process of bringing to bear the skills available on the construction of an objectdomain commonly investigable - available skills being the pole exerting the objective pull on the suggested models of the domain. What is at issue here is the distinction between two modes of knowing, the knowing-how and knowing-that, and the question as to which is prior to which. KF adopt an object-approach and assume that knowing-that is prior to knowing-how and that the latter is reducible to the knowledge of the former variety. This is possible only if we assume a universal domain, and a universal context which theory-building attempts to approximate. This assumption is neither necessary nor practicable, since in practice we have to behave as if heuristic theories differ from nomological ones anyway, as evidenced by the use of distinctions like 'competence vs. performance' by Chomsky et al. The alternative is to formulate the programme of studying actions by recognising a level of skill-acquaintance prior to conceiving them as objects of empirical study, i.e. of conceiving knowing-how prior to knowing-that, and the priority and irreducibility of the former to the latter. (These alternatives themselves are

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heuristic suggestions, and therefore justification for them can not be of a variety of adducing evidence in terms of data). The much discussed relativist/absolutist controversy arises in an approach that dispenses with such a level of skill-acquaintance. When one dispenses with such a level, one has to take recourse to assuming some basic knowingthats - either given empirically or as convention depending on decision. If such knowing-thats are conceived as empirically given, then we have an absolutist stance, and if conceived as depending on decision, a relativist stance. One cannot take recourse to pragmatic criteria to say which are primary knowing-thats. Because even a pragmatic criterion, if one has to avoid taking knowing-how as prior to knowing-that, has to be conceived either as factual or as a norm; if factual it is given, if a norm then the search for justification for it sets an infinite regress in motion that can be halted only by conceiving norm as an arbitrary decision. Thus we cannot shake off the model of objects or norms given to or entertained by subjects - which is exactly what Cartesianism is all about.

5. Thinkingly Doing Something In the previous chapter it was argued that a level of skill-acquaintance has to be presumed prior to the accessibility of the actions as objects of enquiry. It follows from this that reflection on actions as an epistemic activity has to be distinguished from empirical investigation. Whereas the latter results in object-descriptions, the former does not. This raises the question as to how to characterise cognitive gain in the case of reflection. In the case of empirical investigation one can characterise cognitive gain by saying that it has made more truths and more powerful explanations available. Is there a comparable way of characterising cognitive gain in the case of reflection? The rest of this dissertation addresses this question, but only by way of movement in concentric circles and not head on. In the closing period of his philosophical career, Ryle concentrated on the notion of thinking in the sense of reflection and pondering. One of his recurring phrases of this period is 'thinkingly doing something'.1 This chapter concentrates on this notion and introduces certain conceptual distinctions in relation to it. Then, in the next chapter, with the help of those distinctions Ryle's various assertions regarding conceptual enquiry will be elucidated. 5.7. Schema vs. Actualization and Doing vs. Happening I will use in the following the terms 'semiotic1, 'epistemic1 and 'cognitive' synonymously; they stand in contrast to the use of the term 'pragmatic'. An action is pragmatic when performed to achieve some practical purpose. It is semiotic when performed to show how to perform it. The point of this distinction is not whether it is intended in one way or the other; one and the same performance can be looked at both from a pragmatic and a semiotic perspective: someone using a coffee machine may be doing it without intending to show how to use the machine, but nevertheless for a person unfamiliar with coffee machines that action can function as a semiotic action, as that of showing how to make coffee by using a coffee machine. Secondly, an action can be looked upon in terms of a 'schema' and 'actualisation'. These terms are somewhat equivalent to the terms 'type1 and See the papers in the second half of CPU and the collection of essays in T, especially 'Adverbial Verbs and Verbs of Thinking;'.

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'token', which have more general currency in English. But the term 'actualisation1 suggests more: It suggests that action-performance is 'bringing about1 an 'embodying1 of a schema. The 'bringing about' has to be understood here without the element of 'intention' often associated with that phrase. Thirdly, one can make an analytic distinction between two dimensions of an action, that of 'doing1 and 'happening': every action has not only an active component of controlling the action-process by the agent, but also a component of happening that the agent 'suffers1 (or experiences Widerfahrnis). This happening aspect, when conceived within a framework of the mind-nature dualism of modern philosophy, tends to be looked upon as an external constraint upon the gestalting possibilities of doing. But it can be looked at as giving 'substance1 to our doing, i.e. as that which makes gestalting possible. In Aristotle, one can argue 'happening' is positively evaluated: theoria, the ideal set for man by him, is opening oneself to 'happening' aspects of one's action. This is brought out by Ryle in his interpretation of the Aristotelian dictum 'man is a rational animal', to mean 'thinkingly doing something1 is a characteristic of human beings.2 To do something thinkingly is obviously to attend to the happening-aspect of one's actions while in the process of doing it. It is by elaborating certain distinctions of 'thinkingly doing something' in terms of the distinction pair 'schema-actualisation1 and 'doing-happening' that I will elucidate reflection and the reflective exercise of speech. We can distinguish two kinds of thinkingly doing something: (i) attentive doing, (ii) probative doing. By 'attentive doing' I mean those doings in practical situations, where attention and carefulness is directed upon doing something. A person who has a certain skill at his disposal requires, in order to exercise it to the maximum perfection, to bestow attention on the happening correlate of the doing in the action-process. But this attending to what happens while doing something is in order to gestalt the action-process - to control or regulate what happens - the 'suffering' or widerfahrnis - by steering the actionprocess by means of appropriate doing-inputs, so that the schema meant to be actualised is in fact actualised. The attention to what happens is a means of achieving the perfect actualisation of the schema. As a contrast to this, one can introduce the notion 'probative doing', where attending to what happens is not merely a means of gestalting the action-process, but also the end itself. Probative doings are those doings where one probes what happens while doing something - this probing being just attending to the happening aspect of one's doing. In both these varieties of 'thinkingly doing something' the schema and performance - or actualisation - are brought to bear on each other. But in one case, schema is brought to bear on the perfection of the performance, while in 2

Cf. 'Rational Animal1 CPII.

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the other the performance is brought to bear on discerning the features of the action-schema. Wherea.s in attentive doing the orientation is pragmatic, in the case of probative doing, it is epistemic. 5.2 Reflective Exploration This distinction between attentive and probative doing when applied to the exercise of speech skill provides us with a way of distinguishing conceptual enquiry from empirical enquiry. In an empirical enquiry, enquiry consists in finding out and representing the characteristics of a domain through a set of predicates conceived as appropriate to it. For instance 'length', 'inertia', 'electrical charge' etc., are appropriate predicates for the domain of physics, but not 'living' and 'non-living'. That is, what constitutes the relevant information is fixed, and also the 'intension' of signs. Thus there is a distinct level of signs, conventionally singled out, corresponding to a domain - which conceived as available and external to these signs. Consequently, representation or sign-action or speech in an empirical enquiry is an attentive doing. That is, here the orientation - as far as it pertains to speech-action and not to the domain - is not epistemic but pragmatic. One is performing a speech-action, not in order to probe what happens when a particular predicate is used, but rather in order to mimetically reconstruct the domain that is conceived as available and external to this doing. The representation following from this kind of enquiry is, therefore, descriptive; it can be said to be true or false. One can point out further that as far as the nature of speech-action is concerned, meta- and object-level enquiries do not differ: In both cases a world of objects is available - made available either through a deliberate construction process as is the case in meta-studies, or through a construction accomplished through day-to-day dealings as is often the case in object-studies. This kind of speech can be considered as object-describing speech,3 and enquiries where speech is of the object-describing variety can be called empirical exploration, irrespective of whether the enquiry is at object- or meta-level. In contradistinction to it, one can specify another kind of enquiry - exploration of a way of doing something while doing it. This can be termed as reflective exploration, and it should not be mistaken for an observation of a way of doing I am using the terms Object-constitutive' and Object-describing' speech to borrow the ideas expressed in the terms 'Rede zu' and 'Rede über' as used by D.Gerhardus, K. Lorenz and Bemd Philippi in the research project on "Wissenschaftssprache versus Umgangssprache: Probleme des Aufbaus einer Wissenschaftssprache in Literatur- und Kunstwissenschaft". A parallel distinction - though not as clearly drawn as 'Rede zu' and Rede über' is to be found in the distinction between primary and secondary dialogue situation, made in K. Lorenz (1970). Object-constitutive speech' as 'Rede zu', it has to be noted, is used to refer to constitutive use of language both in day-to-day life and in building models in scientific contexts

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things when it is available as a domain. The main distinction from empirical exploration is that here the signs and objects are not separately available - i.e., one knows how to do something and the performance itself functions as the sign of the knowing-how; i.e. there is no domain available and external to the sign-action which it mimetically reconstructs. One has to be careful in understanding this point: one can reflect on sign-actions that are correlative to a domain (and that kind of reflection will be our main focus later), but the point is that these (sign-) actions that are reflected upon are not mediated as objects through a separate level of signs. 5.2.1 Explication of Reflection To illustrate and explicate reflective exploration4, we can examine a process of construction of a model for something which is available only as a skill. Let us consider a surgeon, who has developed a particular knack or trick of operating - and he wants to demonstrate it to his students in order to teach them that trick.5 He ponders over how best to show it to students to make them capable of seeing the essence of the technique. He may reflect either by actually performing or by seeing it performed in his 'mental eye', so to speak. In either case he aims at arriving at a method of showing the technique - to arrive at the nature of the schema of the skill he is acquainted with. Where until then, the distinction between the performance and the schema is not available, the reflection is aimed at a way of drawing this distinction in order to make the students to heed the schema. Let us say that the surgeon divides up what he knows how to perform in one single step into a number of steps and a sequence of them. Here one has to distinguish the stage when the surgeon has already decided the way of carving the steps and the sequence, and the stage of reflecting how to carve them out. It is the latter that we are concerned with. While performing in order to introduce the steps and the sequence, the surgeon does not yet know the

5

To a large extent, this section is stimulated and influenced by the seminars and lectures K. Lorenz has been giving over the years concerning the logical genesis of different sorts of actions and signactions starting from 'elementary learning situations'. In a compressed form he has now published these thoughts in the chapter 'Animal Symbolicum' in Lorenz (1990). His interest can be considered as one of providing a reflective-model for the task of reflection on model-building. Whereas Ryleelucidates his notion of logical geography through examples and metaphors, Lorenz is committed to a universalisoii/e procedure (note: not a universal procedure) to build conceptual systems. It is an interesting task to bring out the difference between these two styles (or are they two different ways?) of doing philosophy, but it is a task in itself and not possible to undertake here. My scheme of differentiations compared to Lorenz's is of a limited scope and made in order to elucidate Ryle's assertions on what philosophy is, i.e. to make Ryle's assertions understandable. This example is taken from Ryle, 'Proofs in Philosophy' in CPU (p. 319-25) The example is found on p. 322.

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concerned operating technique as an object, and what he does is to thematise what he knows at a knowing-how level. Introducing the steps and the sequence of performance is constructing what he knows at a knowing-how level into an object. This activity - which I will term as Object-construction' - is neither describing the knowing-how as an object, nor inventing and setting up a convention as to what that object is. In the case of describing an object, one has a clear demarcation of the object from its situational accompaniments. In object-construction, on the other hand, every demarcation of a chunk of a performance as a step is a suggestion as to what the object is. Further, the criterion to consider it a 'right step' or 'wrong step' is not distinguishable from that of considering it a relevant or irrelevant step for exercising the trick, i.e. the criterion of right and wrong construction is not distinguishable from construction and no construction. Thus, every suggestion as to what the object is may be adequate or inadequate, relevant or irrelevant, but not true or false. In contrast, a suggested description - even if it is irrelevant for the purpose at hand - has to be either true or false. It differs from convention-setting, because to set up a convention is for the participants to decide on something which, though it may be motivated by some purpose, is a doing external to the object-content about which a convention is set. In object-construction, in contrast, the act of construction and the object fall together, i.e., the doing of object-construction is not external to the object-content. It is the compulsions arising out of the nature of the operating technique itself which determines the nature of the model. To use the distinction mentioned above, in the case of convention-setting doing dominates, while in the case of object-construction it is happening that dominates. The judgement whether a suggested step is relevant or not etc., is done by relating it to one's prior action-competence. Thus the acceptability of a suggestion is not arbitrary - the action-competence does exercise a control over it - yet it is not obligatory either. That is, though there is a compulsion to consider certain aspects of a performance as belonging to the schema and certain others as not belonging, yet the choice of the aspects is not obligatory; there are many ways of construing how to do something - even though in all cases the available know-how exercises control on such construction. It is this double character of constructing the steps - the availability of choice and the compulsion exercised by the knowing-how - that makes it simultaneously a suggestion and a disclosure, an invention and a discovery. The explorative aspect of object-construction is due to the fact that it is a probative doing. Unlike empirical exploration, here 'doing' is thematised by itself and not by another level of 'doing'. Therefore, in the resultant sign the 'happening' dimension of performing an action gets registered. Since there is

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no domain here to be mimetically reconstructed, the resultant sign is nondenotative in character and is not amenable to the judgement 'true' and 'false1. Chronologically, the model may exist along with the knowing-how. Thus the activity of model construction can be one of construction when no model yet available, or it can be the comparison of an available model with the skill in order to alter the model. In either case, the test a which 'knowing-how' provides us with is of a corrective kind - corrective in the very conception of the object itself and not in terms of any information about the object. Another way of pin-pointing the nature of cognition here is to contrast reflective exploration with pragmatic doing, showing (Vorführen) and attentive doing: In the case of pragmatic doing, it is the performance-aspect possibly as a means to something - that is of interest to the performer. In showing, it is the schema-aspect that is of interest. Reflective doings differ from these by the fact that in them the mutual relation between the performance and the schema is of interest. Within reflective doing, as mentioned earlier, one can distinguish between attentive and probative doings. Reflective exploration is probative doing where performance is brought to bear on discerning the features of the action-schema. We can think of a more complex process of object-constitution than is the case in the example of the surgeon's operation technique. Instead of one action being conceived of as an object, one can carve out from different actions certain aspects of them and construe an object out of them. For instance, out of actions such as sitting-on-the-chair, kicking-the-chair, making-the-chair etc. an aspect from each of them can be carved into an object: chair. In such cases, differentiation of actions into an accusative aspect and an agent aspect can come into being. In our example, sitting, kicking, making etc. are agentaspects and chair is the accusative of the action. If these actions are performed to thematise the object chair, (analogous to the performance of our surgeon's operation technique to construct that technique as an object), then, in that case, I will term sitting, kicking, making etc., as the 'forms of access' (Zugangsweisen) to the object and the chair as the object. That is, the agentaspect of the action gets separated from the object-aspect and thereby the former gets a status of separate level of sign-actions separable from the object. In the case of techniques or ways of doing, as elaborated in the previous paragraph, the elements and the sequences introduced in thematising the technique constitute the parts of the technique both in a pragmatic sense and in a semiotic sense, i.e. pragmatic and sign-aspects of an action are not separately available. In the case of object-constitution such as the chair, on the other hand, we have a separation of the sign-actions from the object such that the performance of sitting etc. are not considered as part of the chair, but only one's form of access to the chair. I will refer to the result of this latter sort of object construction by the term 'differentiating practice' in contrast to the result of the former sort which will be termed as 'pragmatological practice',

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Opragmatological1 and not 'pragmatic', because there is a logical differentiation of pragmatic and sign aspects here too in that, as mentioned already, the steps and sequences, while constituting the performance, also constitute the signs for the schema). As used by Ryle, 'speech' refers to differentiating practice and not to pragmatological practice. In the example of the operating technique, we can visualise a situation where two different ways of differentiating the elements and the sequence that constitutes the operating technique are suggested. We can consider these different ways as constituting the same operating technique or in fact constituting two different techniques of operating. In the first case we are likely to say that two different styles of performing the same technique are available, and in the latter case we say that there are two different, though partially overlapping, techniques of operating. In the case of differentiating practice, we can say there are two forms of access to the same object or the world, or there are two partially overlapping ways of differentiating the objects or constructing the world. I will bring the forms of access to the object and styles of performing an action under the term 'person-aspect of a (signAction'. Further, in the following, 'person-aspect' and 'communication aspect' will be used inter-changeably, because it is in communication with another person that one becomes aware of differences in style and the forms of accessibility (as well as the differences in the world one inhabits). The point of putting forward the knowing-how approach as against the object-approach is to indicate that though the object-aspect is logically distinguishable in contextually arrived at (explicit or tacit) consensus, it is not separable from the person-aspect. For practical purposes, in a situation of a stabilised practice (as obtaining in a highly homogeneous and standardised 'culture'), the person-aspect can be ignored. However, such situations in an absolute sense are obtained only in the ethnologist's imagined constructions. At the level of knowing how to represent the world (in day-to-day dealings or in academic dealings), i.e. at the level of differentiating practice, one is not often clear whether one has forms of access to the same object (or the world), or has two different partially overlapping objects (or worlds). On a pragmatic level, when two different differentiating practices encounter each other, even though one may notice the divergence, the aim is to achieve the co-ordination of the actions and the tendency is to level down the differences in the differentiating practices either by domination or by co-operation. At the epistemic level, the interest is exactly on the divergence in order to see the contours of the different worlds. Philosophy (or 'reflection on speech' or 'conceptual enquiry') is the task of bringing out the contours that differentiate the forms of the access; to the objects from the different objects that one has access to. Put in a global fashion, reflection on speech is meant to see whether, and where, our differentiating practice exhibits the differences in the forms of access and the differences in the world we have access to.

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5.3 Reflective Exercise of Speech and Implication Thread As already pointed out, one and the same skill can be exercised with two different aims (Einstellung): it can be exercised either in order to accomplish a particular task (pragmatic purpose) or in order to discern or thematise the nature of the skill itself (epistemic purpose). If we take the sciences as well as the day-to-day ways of describing our environment as differentiating practices, i.e. as representational know hows rather than as sets of descriptions of domains, then a possibility of conceiving a reflective as distinct from the object- or meta-level empirical discipline opens up, i.e. there arises the possibility of conceiving an intellectual discipline without postulating a specific domain for it. In other words, the suggestion is to look at doing science or empirical investigation as an attempt at distinguishing and describing a domain, and doing philosophy as an activity of reflection on such actions of making distinctions and descriptions. The differentiating practice, however, differs from the surgeon's technique in that a differentiation of one object from another is simultaneously a determination of other objects. That is, a differentiation simultaneously implies and is implied by a host of other differentiations. Put in terms of speech, it is such an action that one saying implies and is implied by a host of other sayings. Probatively exercising speech is not wholly analogous to thematising the surgeon's technique by thinkingly repeating a performance, since an utterance in itself is not yet speech and to attend to the happening aspect of speech is something more than looking at what happens when an utterance is repeated; one has to pay attention to the implication thread of the assertion made. The word 'implication' is to be understood here in a sense wider than the formal logical one - it has to be inclusive of contextual implications.6 How exactly to define it is, for the moment, secondary. What is important is to see that a saying is constituted by this interconnection to other sayings. Let us call this interconnectedness 'implication thread1.7 An implication thread is both open and specific: open in the sense that there is no finite set of sayings that exhaust it, and specific in the sense that one can assume that it is possible to determine whether a given saying belongs to a particular implication thread in question. (Further, the characteristic of being Open' makes it impossible to be described by a statement about it, i.e. an implication thread has to be grasped only at a knowing-how level.)

The required sense of 'implication' here is partly thematised by H.P.Grice under his famous concept of'implicature'. See 'Logic and Conversation' in: Cole P. and Morgan T., (1975). This term 'implication thread' is borrowed from Ryle, 'Philosophical arguments' in: CPU.

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5.4 Validating a Theory vs. Making a Theory Understandable Sciences are usually seen as theoretical ventures meant to provide adequate descriptions of different domains. But the suggestion here is to look at them as forms of speech-skill. The advantage of this suggestion is that it unites both the sorts of scientific ventures mentioned in the previous chapter: that of providing heuristic theories and nomological theories. Suppose we term the activity of making distinctions and providing adequate descriptions 'theory constructing activity'. This can be exercised in two ways: (i) to formulate a theory and say something about an object-domain, (ii) to thematise this very theory construction and description. 'Theory-constructing activity' as used here perhaps needs to be disambiguated: it can be conceived as an exercise of a general capacity for any scientific thinking, or as something involved and attained with regard to a particular field. For the following, theoryconstruction that makes one possess a particular theory is what is of interest: a theory-construction can be seen as an investigation into something. When it succeeds it results in a (teachable or communicable) skill (in the sense of the Greek word 'techne') that enables one to describe and explain an objectdomain. Thematising this skill, on the other hand, has to do with specifying the saying-power of the theory, i.e. specifying what expansion of the epistemic horizon is involved in the acquisition of this theory. To make this latter notion clearer: One can distinguish two senses in which the soundness of a theory can be probed: (i) testing it to find out its power to truly describe or explain an assumed domain; (ii) probing it to find out the exact meaning and scope of it. This latter is what I call 'probing the saying power' of a theory. As an aside, it can be pointed out that the suggestion to look at theories as forms of speech-skill is to decide in favour of the techne and endoxa conception of knowledge as against the thinking on science derived from the episteme tradition. It means endorsing Sextus Empiricus' criticism of the episteme tradition8 and considering context-dependency as an unavoidable aspect of knowledge because there are no object-differentiations without the correlative person-aspects. 'Subjectivism' and 'decisionism' are the results of separating the person- from object-aspects of speech-action and considering cognition as an action of mimetically constructing the objects out there in a contextless universe. To probe the saying power of a theory is to simultaneously see its connections and boundaries with other accepted theories (for the same or other fields). That means, probing the saying power of a theory is an inter-theory and not an intra-theory undertaking. A formulation of a theory involves certain logical steps - or rather establishing certain logical connections -, whether they are in fact psychologically undergone in formulating the 8

Cf. Sextus Empiricus, Grundriß der pyrrhonischen Skepsis, in: W. Wieland (eds.) (1978) p. 349-63.

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concerned theory or not. This follows from what was said earlier of speech being constituted by the implication threads. To understand an utterance is to construe it as having a particular set of implication threads. Normally these construals are not the ones explicitly formulated, but known in the sense of knowing how to deal with the concerned implications of a saying in a situation - either of a day-to-day or scientific sort. But sometimes such construals involve contrary or contradictory sets. This is the phenomenon of confusion. Confusions may surface through paradoxes, dilemmas or absurdities. It is such situations that predominantly occasion the conceptual enquiry. Conceptual enquiry can, therefore, be seen as an enquiry into the exact scope and limits of the implication thread s connected with one or more sayings. One way to enquire is to pursue the farther ends of a set of apparently compatible implication threads, and see whether they remain compatible; which member of the set has to be dropped out, and which others have to be included in order to arrive at a satisfactory compatibility with the original know-how level grasp of the saying. This is to attend to the happening aspect of the sayings. Thus what happens in the process of conceptual enquiry is something more than mere identification of the source of paradoxes and the setting aside of confusions; one discerns the extent and limit of the saying power of a use of a word or words. Therefore conceptual enquiry is also a process of making a saying understandable, not merely in terms of its pragmatic worth to say about something, but also in terms of its epistemic worth - in terms of seeing the scope and limits of the implication thread of a saying.

6. Theory of Abstract Questions, Categories and 'Logical Geography1 As mentioned in chapter 2, Ryle's overriding worry that stimulated his work was the concern with the theory of what philosophy is. He locates two areas in tradition where such a concern with the theory of philosophy was the main motive. One was the doctrine of categories, the other the attempt to identify how 'abstract questions' are related to 'concrete questions'. Unlike the former, the latter is not a clearly defined area of traditional philosophy; yet how one answers the Lockean question as to 'how we form abstract ideas' does have implications for the theory of philosophy one would propound. Historical accuracy apart, Ryle discusses these two issues in such a way that he identifies certain types of mistakes that result in wrong-headed answers to the question: what is philosophy? I will take up Ryle's analyses in these two areas and elucidate his conceptions making use of the conceptual apparatus constructed in the last chapter. The issue of abstract questions I will take up first, because my discussion of it is going to be brief. Then I will take up the discussion by Ryle of categories and show why in his reflections on what philosophy is, notions of 'category mistakes', 'dilemmas' etc. rather than 'category statements' occupied the centre-piece. 6.1 Concrete and Abstract Questions A popular way of characterising philosophical questions is to say that they are 'abstract'. Whereas asking 'what is the price of this commodity?' is asking a concrete question, to ask 'what is the exchange value?' is to ask an abstract question. Similarly, to ask 'what is the time now?' is to ask a concrete question, but to ask 'what is time!' is an abstract question. One may have reservations regarding the terminology of 'abstract' and 'concrete', but one cannot deny the importance of the difference between these two sorts of question. How the relation between them is understood also determines how philosophical activity is conceived. The dominance of object-approach in tackling this issue can be shown by considering the traditional method of division as a way of arriving at

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definitions. There are different versions of this1, but for my purpose, which is one of illustrating a certain assumption rather than giving a historical exegesis, I will take up Hobbes1 version. He speaks of resolutive (or analysis) and compositive methods as methods of investigation. As mentioned in chapter 3 (part I), Hobbes distinguishes the search after the knowledge of definitive phenomenon from the search after "science indefinitely", i.e. the search after the most general principles applicable to all phenomena. This latter is what 'first philosophy1 is supposed to do, and whatever Hobbes says in this regard is connected with the relation between abstract and concrete questions. ".. to those who search after science indefinitely, which consists in the knowledge of causes of all things, as far forth as it may be attained, (and the causes of singular things are compounded of the causes of universal or simple things) it is necessary that they know the causes of universal things, or of such accidents as are common to all bodies, that is, to all matter, before they can know the causes of singular things, that is, of those accidents by which one thing is distinguished from another. .. Moreover, seeing universal things are contained in the nature of singular things, the knowledge of them is to be acquired by reason, that is, by resolution. For example, if there be propounded a conception or idea of some singular thing, as of a square, this square is to be resolved into a plain, terminated with a certain number of equal and straight lines and right angles. For this resolution we have these things universal or agreeable to all matter, namely, line, plain, (which contain superficies) terminated, angle, straightness, rectitude, and equality; and if we can find out the causes of these, we may compound them altogether into the causes of a square. Again, if any man propound to himself the conception of gold, he may, by resolving, come to the ideas of solid, visible, heavy, (that is, tending to the centre of the earth, or downwards) and many other more universal than gold itself; and these he may resolve again, till he come to such things as are most universal. And in this manner, by resolving continually, we may come to know what those things are, whose causes being first known severally, and afterwards compounded, bring us to the knowledge of singular things. I conclude, therefore, that the method of attaining to the universal knowledge of things is purely analytical".

First of all, when in the above passage the word 'cause' is used, it means the 'natures' and not 'cause' in the sense of mechanisms as elsewhere in Hobbes. As becomes evident by the examples - for instance, gold is said to have 'solid', 'visible', 'heavy' etc. as causes -, "search for causes" means here a search for definitions of concepts with which definite phenomena can be investigated. But search for definitions or conceptual enquiry is thought of here with an analogy of resolving things into their components. As a result, getting at the most general concepts or assertions is thought of as if it is a task of finding the core essence that recurs in all things. What Hobbes is looking

2

For an overview of different versions, see N. Koertge, 'Analysis as a method of discovery during the Scientific Revolutions' in: Cohen and Wartofsky (1985), p. 238-56. Hobbes, EW, Vol I, p. 68-9.

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for is a procedure for arriving at definitions like 'if something is gold, then it is solid, visible and heavy1 from judgements such as 'this piece of gold is solid, visible and heavy'. 'Analysis' or 'resolution' is suggested to be such a procedure. We may use the terms 'abstract1 and 'concrete1 statements to refer to the first and second assertions respectively, but this should not make us think of the first as a statement about an 'essence' contained in the object about which the second is a true assertion. But this latter kind of thinking clearly underlies the above passage. The above passage can be considered as a classical statement of an empiricist programme, a programme of arriving at general statements (or at 'attaining the universal knowledge of things') beginning from singular statements (or 'idea of some singular thing'). However, the object-model to think about conceptual issues is not confined to empiricist approaches. As mentioned in the first chapter, one can consider the general statement (or 'general idea') as the starting point of knowledge, arriving at a singular statement (or 'the idea of a single thing') as a successive addition of 'notions' to make the statement 'concrete'. In fact Hobbes' compositive method is conceived after this image. That is, the object-approach to conceptual enquiry can be a top-down or a bottom-up approach. Of course, one can reinterpret the idea of 'essence' to mean the logical form of singular statements, such as statements concerning a piece of gold. In support of this interpretation, we can point out the fact that the method of division originated in connection with the problem of the construction of syllogism.3 The following assertion from Gassendi's Logic is typical: "The search for a middle term may be conducted either by analysis (or resolution) starting from the subject, or else by synthesis (or composition) starting from the predicate".4 However, underlying such construction of syllogisms was the assumption that things can be brought under a scheme of hierarchy of genera and species. Thus, though its focus was that of tackling the problem of showing how one statement can be connected with another as implication and implicans, the underlying model was one of subsuming something under a class. But it is unsuited for the purpose of showing how the implication threads of different kinds of assertions interlock. The passage of Hobbes suggests that the relation between the conception of gold and the ideas or conceptions of 'solid', 'visible', 'heavy' etc. is one that exists between the constituents and an additive whole. This is possible only if we assume that there are certain basic features of the world, the names of which we can consider as basic predicates; all other predicates are additive compounds of such basic predicates, referring in their turn to things that are equally additive compounds of the assumed basic 3 4

N.Koertge( 1985) ibid. Gassendi P., (1972) p. 369.

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features. Such an assumption is what Ryle identifies as the 'alphabetical view of the proposition factors', the view that the components of an assertion are like the letters of a word. This view will be discussed below, but for the moment, it is useful to mention Ryle's simple argument against it: a sentence or assertion is not a list of words and a word is not a label of a thing. The comparison and compounding of concepts is not the same kind of a task as the comparing and compounding of objects. In short, the implication thread that connects a general statement about gold and a statement where the predicates 'heavy', Visible' etc., occur cannot be thematised within a model taken from our ways of thinking when we compare the features of different objects, as the above passage from Hobbes presumes. 6.2 The Programme of Identifying Categories The search for definitions as exemplified by Hobbes' passage is a continuing strain in the philosophical tradition and it continues in the 20th century Analytical philosophy in the form of a search for clarification. These concerns are in effect the concern with the task of showing the interconnection between the implication threads of different assertions, which in turn is the same as the task of making the things understandable. However, certain assumptions continuing from the tradition can vitiate the perception of that task. It is necessary to locate those assumptions more precisely. In one of his essays, Ryle takes the theories of categories in the philosophical tradition5 as efforts to make speech understandable by specifying the types of predicates that there are. Aristotle's list of categories, for instance, is meant to be a list of ultimate types of predicates - where 'ultimate' is meant to indicate that the list is intended as including all possible types that can occur in any simple, singular proposition -, i.e., those elementary propositions, "each of which is about at least one named or directly indicated particular". This programme can be generalised to include not merely predicates, but also terms in the subject-position, so that "category means no longer 'type of predicate', but 'type of term' where 'term' means 'abstractable factor in a range of simple singular propositions'".6 One can generalise this programme further by taking the task to be that of identifying the 'abstractable factors' not only of singular propositions, but also of any proposition. Extended in this way, the programme of identifying categories corresponds to what the Ideal language -* In 'Categories' he asserts that "Doctrines of categories and theories of types are explorations in the same field. ..The matter is of some importance, for not only is it the case that category propositions (namely the assertion that terms belong to certain categories or types) are always philosopher's propositions, but I believe, the converse is also true. So we are in the dark about the nature of philosophical problems and methods if we are in the dark about types or categories." CPU. 170.

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philosopher's programme is: it is a programme of building a meta-language for the ideal way in which information can be thought of and communicated. It should be noted that the programme of ideal language philosophers is not a programme for constructing a language to be spoken and written, but rather of providing a description of the structure of languages that needs to be used if we are to convey information clearly, concisely and precisely.7 6.3 What is it that is Identified as Belonging to a Category or Type? A discussion of this programme hinges upon having a clear idea of what it is to be a 'factor of a proposition'. Since his discussion of traditional theories is couched in terms of this notion, Ryle attempts at a clear formulation of it. The method he follows is very instructive in that he provides a sketch of the logical genesis of the notion of'factor of a proposition' taking 'sentence' as his starting point: as indicated in the previous chapter, for Ryle, the 'use' of a word is an act whereas the sentence is the result of it. Thus 'sentence' is a very general notion covering both 'sentence' in a language and 'sentence' in the sense of something said by someone. That is, it is meant to indicate the result of an action - both 'action' and 'result' conceived as types and not tokens - but is not specified any further. As the next step he calls attention to the fact that we are able to identify different sentences as partially similar and partially dissimilar. Thus we are able to make sense of the assertion that the sentence contains parts. But these 'parts' are not such that they can exist independently of, and logically prior to, sentences. They are rather 'factors' distinguishable within a sentence but not separable from it, and this distinguishability is itself obtained by a comparison of sentences: 'factors' are those that remain invariant in two or more different sentences. In the next step, Ryle introduces the distinction between the factors of a 'sentence' in a linguistic sense and in a logical sense (i.e. 'proposition'). The factors one is concerned with in a theory of categories are that of what is said in abstraction from its empirical determinations such as it being said in some Cf. "The ideal language, as I conceive it, is not a language actually to be spoken but a blue print or schema, complete only in the sense that it must show, in principle, the structure and systematic arrangement of all the major areas of our experience." Bergman G., "The criteria for an ideal language', (132-34) in: R.Rorty (1967) p. 134. It is possible to identify one aspect of the programme identifying the categories as running through the tradition, and this aspect is reflected in this passage from Bergman: the programme of identifying categories went along with the notion of basic fact categories were supposed to be defining the basic structure of the world. This expressed itself in Aristotle in the assumption that there are basic substances and that these substances are singular and ultimate. He can be considered as having started from the world of common sense, and it is this world of common sense which provided for him the context within which the knowledge process is situated. To include scientific domains as starting points does not alter this position, in so far as it is assumed that there is a world referred to through sign-actions that do not involve person -aspect, as defined in chapter 5.

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language at some date, by some author, with some slangy, whispering, pedantic etc. style. The word 'abstraction' is used advisedly: what is said can be conceived as invariant in a number of sentences in different languages (i.e., having different grammatical and linguistic forms), voices and styles of saying. That is, one can distinguish 'what is said1 from all these empirical determinants, yet this does not mean that it can be separated from the linguistic form or any other empirical determinants.8 It has to be noted, however, that the invariance of 'what is said' is not a fact of nature, but a result of a stabilised form of practice among a population which makes it possible to look at the empirical determinants as factors belonging to tokens and not schema. Put in another way, the empirical determinants are conceived as belonging to person-aspect of sign-actions by persons inhabiting a common world. But at certain junctures the assumption of a common world may prove problematic. At that juncture, what is considered as different styles and different forms of accessibility to the same world may be discovered to be in reality the signs of different objects, i.e. as signs referring to different worlds rather than different signs for a common world. 6.4 Tasks for a Theory of Categories Ryle distinguishes two separate tasks that a theory of category is meant to accomplish: (a) formulating a method to solve the "technical problem of how to exhibit or symbolise type-homogeneities and typeheterogeneities in abstraction from the concrete factors which exemplify them",

and (b) formulating a method for "establishing the type-homogeneities and type-heterogeneitiees" ^

ο

One purpose of this elucidation of the genesis of the factors of a proposition is to point out that the 'factor' is neither identical with the empirically identifiable linguistic form nor separable from it (CPU 173-74). Appreciation of this is crucial to avoid dangers in two different directions that a formulation of the question concerning categories is faced with. Using the semantic idiom one may say that the question 'what category a factor of sentence or proposition belongs to?' is "in a way just a question about the possibilities of co-significance of certain classes of expressions" (CPU 181). In the case of this formulation, however, one is likely to mistake the category-questions with the questions concerning the grammar of the language in which something is said. If on the other hand we say that the question is about 'factors' represented by linguistic expressions, it is likely to suggest there are some non-linguistic somethings constituting the accusatives of linguistic expressions; i.e. 'to mean' is taken as a two-place predicate having linguistic expressions and non-linguistic something as its arguments. Further it leads us to assume that representational doings are of one uniform type. Ryle cites the traditional notion of 'idea' as an example of this assumption. For both the sentences, quoted under (a) and (b) respectively, see CPU 172.

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Both tasks (a) and (b) are logically distinguishable, but they are not such that they can be carried out separately and independently. To begin with, it is obvious that the first task is parasitic on the second: one cannot seek for the technical symbols that are meant to be invariant over different speech-practices and natural languages unless the heterogeneity or homogeneity of 'factors' is established in some way. However, the establishing of the distinctions to be symbolised is also a suggestion as to what structure the technical apparatus have to embody. That is, making a common technical apparatus possible is also the building of a common context of meta-language. This means further that the technical symbols are infected by the context within which the differentiations are made which underlie the technical apparatus. Ryle's own concern is mainly with (b). 6.5 Identification of Mistakes in the Traditional Theories of Categories Ryle identifies three mistakes that vitiated the formulation of such a method by referring to the history of the theory of categories: (i) An 'alphabetical1 view of factors and a 'juxtaposition' as against the 'syntactical1 theory of their combination. This results in the separation of the theory of meaning from the theory of reasoning or the theory of logic; (ii) A view that can be termed as the 'material', as against the 'formal', conception as to what the categories are. This results in the assumption that to identify categories is to identify a special kind of factual characteristic that is the source of an the empirical fact, and in some sense, more fundamental than empirical facts. Consequently, the assumption arises that there are some matters of fact to be discovered by apriori methods. (iii) The assumption that there are a finite set of categories that can be listed once and for all. The consequence of this is the belief that the philosophical task is to build a final ideal language - the list of categories constituting its elements and the rules of their combination its syntax. This assumption goes along with submerging the task (b), mentioned in the previous section above, under (a). 6.5.1 Alphabetical View of Factors Ryle traces in Aristotle a view he calls the alphabetical view of factors. Just as the alphabets are identifiable and specifiable as independent of the words constituted by them, the factors are looked upon as similar elements existing independently of, and logically prior to, the propositions. Aristotle formulates the problem of identifying categories in connection with the singular propositions that are simple, i.e. those propositions that are

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about an individual (or 'particular') and those that cannot be split into constituent propositions combined by logical connectives. His question was: how do a range of simple, singular propositions that are similar by being about the same individual or individuals, differ from each other? In other words, the question was: what are the possible predicates through which one individual can be distinguished from another? Even here the subjects and predicates are abstractions, they are factors differentiated within the propositions asserted. But within this confinement one can distinguish words into those that refer to the subject of attributes and those that signal the different attributes. However, if one is not careful here, it is easy to slip into the assumption that there are subject names on the one hand and attribute names on the other, the combination of which produces sentences or propositions. Such an assumption would put the task of making things understandable off the track. Since a sentence is to be seen as a combination of subject and attribute names, it follows that there are meaning-units which are logically prior to sentences and out of which sentences can be built. This implies further that to make a sentence understandable one can begin with the consideration of words - i.e., words are the starting point for considering meaning.10 But the only way to conceive the words as meaning units independent of sentences is to take them to be labels or names attached to things or characteristics. A theory of categories then becomes a task of classifying the labels or names by reference to the distinction between the kinds of entities that they are attached to; e.g. whether they are names of things or of attributes - and of what kind of attributes. This in turn presupposes that a world is available as already differentiated into kinds of individuals with their characteristic attributes. Thus the task of identifying categories is derivative of the task of looking for 'natural' kinds. This would lead to two consequences that have vitiated a proper understanding of what the task of a theory of categories can and ought to be. First, it induces a separation of the task of finding what differentiations there are from the task of exhibiting appropriately those differentiations. To speak of natural kinds is another way of saying that the object-aspect of our differentiating practice (i.e. speech) can be separated from the person-aspect. (This assumption is what has been elaborated earlier as the non-semiotic acquaintance-relationship to objects). The assumption of the logical priority of words or proposition-factors over propositions is a special case of the separation of object-aspect from the person or communication aspect. But with such a separation, the task of identifying the proposition factors reduces itself either to an empirical search for the differences in nature or to the technical problem of how to exhibit the homogeneities and heterogeneities of the factors Thus Mill, for instance, equates words and descriptive phrases with names. Cf. Mill J.S.,(1851, reprint, 1974), A system of Logic p.24-27

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empirically noticed. In either case, the object-constitutive aspect of speech, and along with it the type of cognitive activity involved in object-constitution, gets sidelined. Secondly, to assume natural kinds and the corresponding approach to factors as speech-units that label the natural factors would disconnect the task of identifying the nature of the types or categories of factors from the task of identifying the logical form, i.e. the form of a proposition by virtue of which it can become the constituent of an argument. Thus, in Aristotle, the theory of how to draw conclusions from a proposition - the theory of syllogism - and the theory of how to establish the similarity or the difference between factors - the theory of categories - are handled independently of each other. Suppose we consider the latter as a theory of how to establish the meaning and the former as a theory of how to establish an implication, i.e. 'theory of meaning' and 'theory of logic' respectively, the alphabetical view of factors leads to a separation of these two ventures. This would make one oblivious to the fact that a differentiating practice is constituted by implication threads, and to specify a particular differentiation is to specify the scope and limits of an implication thread. It becomes clear from the above, one can assume, that the mistake identified with Aristotle is the same as the mistake underlying the logical atomist strain of Analytical Philosophy. 6.5.2 Assuming Two Kinds of Facts The second mistake that one can commit while formulating a method of identifying categories is traced back to Kant. Ryle says that in contrast to Aristotle Kant did see that there are many different ways in which one proposition can differ from another and that factors are abstractions from the propositions. Thus he had a syntactical theory of the combination of factors in contrast to Aristotle's alphabetical theory, i.e. he realised that factors are derivatives of the forms of the propositions and not the other way round. But according to Ryle, he thought that "there exist two sorts of facts or propositions - the logician's facts or propositions and the scientist's facts or propositions and that the forms of the latter are the stepchildren of the former". 1 '

This passage embodies a critique of one of the currents of contemporary philosophy, as represented by Strawson and K.O. Apel. Both of them assume that by apriori thinking certain truths can be established. Ryle's critique of Husserl's account of apriori thinking elaborates the above assertion by connecting Husserl's notion of first philosophy with that of Kant's. In both 1

' CPU 178.

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cases the claim is to have arrived at the 'foundation of sciences' from a special method - 'phenomenological method1 in the case of Husserl and 'transcendental method' in the case of Kant. In both cases the claim proceeds from drawing attention to the obvious fact that any object, i.e. the subject of attributes, is necessarily an 'accusative' of our thought, i.e. it is necessarily thought about while being identified as the subject of attributes.12 The next move in the claim is that there are some necessary _ modes in which we think about anything. These modes in which we think are to be the "facts" discovered by the supposed special method. In other words, the forms of our thinking - i.e. the forms of propositions - are themselves facts to be discovered, and propositions stating the forms of propositions are in some sense more "fundamental" than the empirical propositions. It is this second move with which Ryle finds fault. His argument against this move is: factual propositions are either denotative or those implying such denotative propositions (for instance, the general propositions meant to be the laws of nature). But propositions saying what it is for something to be something are neither denotative nor do they imply any denotative propositions. The Husserl-Kant argument depends on an erroneous assumption that propositions expressing the necessary modes in which we think about anything are denotative propositions.13 Put in another way, they think that to specify the forms of thought (or of speech or of knowledge) is to describe a 12

CPI 172. To quote Ryle: "1 do not myself believe that phrases such as Ixing so and so', "being such and such' and 'that so and so is such and such' do denote object or subject of attributes. For I don't think that they are denoting expressions at all. Consequently, though I can know what it is for something to be a so and so, I think that this knowledge is wrongly described as an 'intuition of an essence'. For intuition, which I take to be a synonym for knowledge by acquaintance or perception, does seem to be or to involve a relation between two subjects of attributes, the perceiver and the thing perceived. And I do not think that what Husserl calls 'essences' are subjects of attributes at all." CPI 171 He expresses the same view in 'Systematically Misleading Expressions': ".. general terms are not really the names of subjects of attributes. So 'universals' are not objects in the way in which Mr. Everest is one, and therefore the age old question what sort of objects they are is a bogus question. For general nouns, adjectives, etc., are not proper names, so we cannot speak of 'the objects called "equality", "justice", and "progress" Platonic and anti-Platonic assertions, such as that 'equality is, or is not, a real entity', are, accordingly, alike misleading, and misleading in two ways at once; for they are both quasi-ontological statements and quasi-Platonic ones." (CPU 48). Cf. also the section 'phenomenological reduction' CPI 172 -."I think myself that Husserl is (with Kant) confusing ' I '-ness with a new ' I ' . Propositions about 'Bewußtsein überhaupt' are really about what it is to be an T having experiences , and not about an ' I ' that has them. " (ibid. 174.) The important attack on Husserl's doctrine of dependence of the 'transcendent perception' on the 'immanent perception'. (Cf. CPI 176). "No philosophical propositions are empirical either in the sense of being about this as distinct from that particular subject of attributes or in the sense of implying as premises propositions which are so. This does not, of course, involve that philosophical arguments should not contain references to particular cases as instances or examples. On the contrary, a good illustrative example is often of great utility. But an exempli gratia is not an ergo - as is shown by the fact that imaginary examples are often just as useful as actual ones, which would not be the case in a genuine inductive argument." CPI 169-70).

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subject of attributes. But the forms of thought are the forms with which we distinguish, not the forms attributed to a subject to distinguish it from another. Or: the knowledge of the inter-connections between the predicates is not the same as the knowledge gained through predication at whatever level. The Kant-Husserl mistake is to grasp these two types of knowledge as knowledge of the same sort at two different levels. However, it becomes possible to think of those two types as the knowledge of the same type at two different levels, once we assume there to be a universal context of which all other empirically variable contexts are derivatives. In such an eventuality the forms of our predication are derivative from the way the objects are, and our access to the way the objects are is without the mediation of predicates, i.e. in a manner of non-semiotic acquaintance, as elaborated in the first chapter. To arrive at the 'forms' of our knowledge is, then, to arrive at the 'facts of a basic sort' through a non-semiotic acquaintance relationship. 6.6 Finite Number of Categories and the Idea of Construction In fact the difference between the Aristotelian/logical atomist assumption of natural kinds and the Kant-Husserl equation of elucidation with discovery of "foundational" facts is simply the difference as to where to anchor the universal context - in nature or in human nature. The belief that there is such a universal context is not doubted, and it is reflected in the assumption that there are a finite number of types of factors. Rejection of this assumption is central to Ryle's formulation of an alternative to the traditional conception of philosophy, and therefore a challenge to it is a recurring theme in his writings. In D, for instance, he throws a challenges to place the six terms chosen from the game of bridge under any of the categories that the philosophers are accustomed to enumerate.14 But the point of this challenge has to be precisely understood. The denial that there is no finite set of categories should not be construed as an empirical assertion that there are many different kinds of terms in a language and different kinds of uses of language. For multiplicity of a phenomena cannot be an argument against bringing them under a finite number of classes. Scientific theories are meant to attempt exactly that. A theory can be discovered to be inadequate, but when this is noticed we seek a more encompassing theory. Therefore the rejection of the assumption that there is a finite set of categories must be based on some other argument. Further, that argument - whatever it may be - if successful would also have the effect of showing that a philosophical theory is necessarily different in nature from a scientific theory. 14

D 10 also See'Categories'in CPU

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To understand the nature of Kyle's challenge one has to note the following. He connects the assumption about the existence of a finite set of categories with the attempts to develop a 'code-symbolism' for which exhaustiveness in principle is claimed, 15 i.e. the adequacy of symbols of a particular formal language for the symbolisation of all the possible differences of type or form. The challenge to bring the Bridge terminology under the suggested categories is to counter such a belief and make two points. First, to discern a similarity or difference is always to discern them in relation to some purpose; talk of 'difference in itself unrelated to any context does not make sense. The context in which a concept's differentia from another concept becomes a relevant question is constitutive of that very difference, and there are no ready-made registers of logical kinds or types to which any given concept may be said to belong. 16 Following from this, second, a given 'code-symbolism' "may be adequate for the exhibition of all the type-differences that concern us in the course of a particular enquiry", 17 and nothing more. The 'particular enquiry' here does not necessarily mean a particular department of enquiry, but rather enquiry in a particular context. The context can be expanded into that of a discipline, of an intellectual tradition or into that of a meta-language to bring the terminology of all the known scientific practices into a unity. Such ventures are not necessarily rejected by Ryle's approach, so long as one is aware of the impossibility of removing the person-aspect of sign-action. This means, in practice, a recognition that one's construction is limited by one's focus of interest, and there is no such thing as an exhaustive focus of interest. This implies a recognition of the possibility of alternative constructions which possibly imply alternative worlds and not merely competitive descriptions of the same world. This has the further implication that the value of a system constructed out of a limited set of terms or categories should not be conceived in terms of 'descriptive adequacy', but in terms of its intrinsic value as an embodiment of a particular overall perspective. This last point has a radical consequence as to what the nature of a cognitive gain in philosophical activity is and what the process of its attainment is. A discussion of the details of how the nuances of one and the same metaphor was utilised differently, by Ryle on the one hand, and Goodman on the other, to elucidate the nature of the philosophical task, should bring this consequence to light. In his paper 'Abstractions' Ryle makes a distinction between speaking with and speaking on concepts, and compares capacities to do these with the distinction between the capacity of a person to go around his village and the 15

16 17

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capacity for thinking of the path in cartographical terms. This is suggested as an alternative to the metaphor of comparing and distinguishing the objectfeatures to think of the relation between the concrete and abstract assertions. "Instead of thinking of a man who knows onions from beetroots but cannot tell us to what botanical sorts they belong, let us now think instead of the inhabitant of a village who knows well every house, field, stream, road and the pathway in the neighbourhood and is, for the first time, asked to draw or consult a map of his village - a map which shall join on properly to the maps of adjacent districts and in the end to the map of his country and even of his continent. He is being asked to think about his own familiar terrain in a way that is at the start entirely strange, despite the fact that every item that he is to inscribe or identify in his map is to be something that he is entirely familiar with. ... He has, so to speak, to translate and therefore to re-think his local topographical knowledge into universal cartographical terms. ... ... The 'afternoon' or cartographical task is more sophisticated than the 'morning' task of merely guiding someone from the church to the station. But this 'afternoon' task is also in an important way parasitic upon the tasks of the 'morning' type, since the 'cash value', so to speak, of what the code-symbols in the map represent consists wholly in such things as the fields, bridges, paths, rivers and railway stations with which the local inhabitants and visitors and even the Ordnance Surveyors themselves became familiar not by studying maps but ambulando". * Q

*

Whereas in this passage the focus is on what happens when the effort is made to think out the ambulando knowledge of the terrain in cartographical terms, in the following passage from Goodman the focus shifts to the map as an embodiment and as an instrument of knowledge. "The function of a constructional system is not to recreate experience but rather to map it. Though a map is derived from observations of a territory, the map lacks the contours, colors, ... and most other respects may be about as much unlike what it maps as can well be imagined. It may even be very little like other equally good maps of the same territory. A map is schematic, selective, conventional, condensed, and uniform. And these characteristics are virtues rather than defects. The map not only summarises, clarifies, and systematises, it often discloses facts we could hardly learn immediately from our explorations. ... There is no such thing as a completely unabridged map; for abridgement is intrinsic to map making. This, I think, suggests the answer not only to rampant anti-intellectualism but to many another objection against the abstractness, poverty, artificiality, and general unfaithfulness of constructional systems. Many contemporary philosophers are opposed not to analysis as such but to the use of logic and artificial terminology and to step-by-step construction. ... A philosophic problem is considered to arise from lack of care in the use of ordinary 18

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language, and the recommended treatment consists simply in explaining in ordinary language the nature of the misuse or misunderstanding of use. The analyses offered as examples of this method are often much needed and highly illuminating. They are like directions that tell us how to go from the post office to the park without taking a wrong turn at the red barn. .. Yet the opposition to the principles of constructionalism by the practitioners of verbal analysis has always surprised me; for I think there is no irreconcilable conflict of objectives or even of methods. ..The constructionalist recognises the anti-intellectualist as an arch enemy, but looks upon the verbal analyst as a valued and respected, if inexplicably hostile, ally." 19

The difference in the focus of the map metaphor can be formulated as involving a difference in the perspective regarding the activity of conceptual enquiry. The question Ryle asks is: what happens when a landscape familiar in terms of personal day-to-day dealings is thought about in impersonal, neutral terms, i.e. when the ambulando knowledge of the terrain is translated into the cartographic terms? What kind of cognitive gain accrues to the villager in that process? Goodman's question, on the other hand, is: what kind of advantages does a map have which a personal acquaintance with a territory cannot have? Simplified a bit, one can say that whereas Ryle's interest is in the overview as a form of knowledge gained in a map-making process, Goodman's interest is in the map as an instrument of overview required for pragmatic purposes. If Ryle has an objection to Ideal Language Philosophy, it is not directed against constructing a system as such but rather against the implicit assumptions often made regarding the status of the systems. In what sense does a system accomplish an understanding? It is often maintained that a formal system is an instrument of clear thought. But the clarity one gains is, in fact, in the process of constructing the system, or in the process of applying the system to a particular field of experience. Both these processes are of the sort of constructing the knowing how level of knowledge into an object. The stress on the formal system to the exclusion of its encounter with the knowing how, i.e. to the exclusion of the fact that a formal system's function is to order the available knowledge, and in this ordering, the available knowledge can as much exercise a veto as getting organised, leads one to prune away inconvenient and stubborn insights in favour of the elegance of the system. To put it in the metaphor Ryle uses, it makes one think of formations appropriate to drill the soldier as formations to be adhered to in the contingencies of battle. To put it in less metaphorical terms, the constructed system gives us a clue as to where the incompatibilities of the sets of implication thread lies, but it does not give us any clue as to which sets of implication threads are to be brought into compatibility so as to adequately represent the scope, extent and limits of a suggested idea. A map is needed to represent the ambulando knowledge of

19

Goodman N (1972) p. 15-17

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the terrain; a map constructed without reference to the latter may be elegant and neat but not a map of the region we are interested in. It becomes clear now where the subtle, but very consequential, difference between Goodman and Ryle is to be located. Whereas Goodman is interested in the predictive function of the map or the system, Ryle is interested in the nature of parasitism of the map on the ambulando knowledge and thus the nature of parasitism of abstract assertions on concrete assertions. He characterises concrete assertions as the result of knowing how to operate with the concepts by wont and practice, either in a day-to-day or a specialised disciplinary context. One knows the implication thread at the level of knowing how to connect one assertion with another and one situation with another. But knowing something by wont should not be understood as knowing something by habit in the sense of inflexible regular response. As indicated in chapter four, knowing how is a form of knowledge that can be learnt only by way of learning to exercise it in variable contexts, i.e. which is simultaneously a learning to reproduce and vary. Therefore knowing-how level knowledge necessarily involves unnoticed systematic ambiguities. To consider reflection as a process of identifying the systematic ambiguities (and also developing an eye for them) in the process of a particular thinking task is one thing. To consider those ambiguities as remainder of the unfinished business of systematic clarification is another thing. Whether we take the first or the second attitude partly depends upon the model of knowledge we operate with. A knowing-how model conceives reflection as a process of acquiring generalised capacity by reflectively exercising particular capacities. To acquire clarity of thinking is the same as acquiring a general capacity to think clearly, and this is the same as developing an eye for similarities and differences. This cannot be accomplished by perfecting a system conceived as an instrument of thought. That is, though attempting to build systems is a valuable exercise, such attempts should not be thought about in the model of perfecting an instrument; Systems are not instruments which, whenever they are applied, automatically accomplish clarity of thought In other words, if we take the knowing-how approach to knowledge, the cropping up of incoherence, paradox and confusion would be looked upon as part of the nature of the knowledge process, because knowledge by its very nature requires taking over the achievements attained in one context to another context. The arising of apparent incoherence is one of the side-effects of a growth - whether conceived as the growth of a person's or of a society's horizon of thinking; and we cannot legislate apriori the ways in which language has to be used. Such a legislation amounts to inhibiting the very exercise of the capacity to think: "Unnoticed systematic ambiguities are a common source of type-confusions and philosophic problems. Philosophers are sometimes found lamenting this readiness of language to give to one expression the power of expressing an indefinite variety

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of ideas. Some of them even recommend reforms of usage which will pin single meanings to single expressions. But in fact, the capacity of familiar dictions to acquire new inflections of logical forces is one of the chief factors making original thought possible. A new thought can not find a new vehicle ready-made for it, nor can the discrimination of logical power of new ideas precede the birth of knowledge (by wont) of how to think with them. As some spanners are designed to be adjustable so as to fit bolts of the same shape but different sizes, so, though undesigned, those linguistic instruments of thought are found to be most handy which are the most readily adjustable. The suggestion that men should coin a different diction to correspond with every difference in the logical powers of ideas assumes, absurdly, that they would be aware of these differences before being taken aback by paradoxes arising from their naively attributed similarities." 20 What is claimed here is that knowing-how as a knowledge form is necessarily capable of changing the schema via performance even though performance gets its definitiveness of character through the schema. Thus looking at abstract assertions as parasitic on concrete ones is not just another instance of a bottom-up approach, but rather it is to realise that the thematisation of a schema or discerning the nature of a schema can only be by recourse to a performance carried out reflectively. In the case of speech this would mean to have recourse to the implication thread that is known by wont and practice that succeeds in establishing the required connections in practical orientation. But this assumption of practical knowledge as a backdrop for drawing the line between the possible and impossible connection of implication threads does not mean an attitude of conformity to stable practice. Practical knowledge is like performance - it is the medium of change. It contains sets of implication threads which, when drawn farther enough, come into conflict with other sets that equally constitute knowing by wont. Thus, they can be considered as potentially incoherent and therefore potentially capable of mutually changing the structure of each. Reflection is the process of bringing to light such mutual alteration of the assumed implications while using concepts by wont. As a result, the knowing-how approach looks at the phenomenon of confusion, ambiguity and paradoxes just as much as an opportunity of gaining insight as things that need to be cleared out. Especially, one has to look at certain ideas, invented either by an individual genius or by the collective labour of a hitherto (with regard to its system of ideas) unencountered culture, as potentially opening up new horizons of thinking. "Though all abstract ideas alike are liable to generate philosophical puzzles, some demand priority in philosophical examination. Of these one class consists largely of the new theory-shaping ideas which are struck out from time to time in the fields of science, criticism, statesmanship, and philosophy by men of genius. Genius shows itself not so much in the discovery of new answers as in the discovery of new 20

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questions. It influences its age not by solving its problems but by opening its eyes to previously unconsidered problems. So the new idea released by genius are those which give a new direction to enquiry, often amounting to a new method of thinking. Such crucial ideas, being new, are at the start unco-ordinated with the old. Their potency is quickly recognised but their logical powers have still to be determined, as correspondingly we have those logical powers of the old ideas which have yet to be correlated with the new. The task of assimilating the new crucial ideas into the unfevered bloodstream of workaday thought is rendered both more urgent and more difficult by the fact that these ideas necessarily begin by being exciting. They shock the settled who execrate them as superstition, and they spellbind the young who consecrate them into myth. That cloud and this rainbow are not dispelled until philosophers settle the true logical perspectives of the ideas" 21

Though Ryle in the above quote does not mention the ideas of an alien culture, what he says with regard to the ideas of a genius applies equally to the products of a tradition which is the result of the collective labour of generations. Just as in the case of an individual genius, the ideas of an alien culture are objects of shock and sneer as well as excitement and a tendency to mythify, besides being potentially theory shaping. Making them understandable is the activity of co-ordinating the familiar implication threads with the unfamiliar ones. Both the value and the problems involved in the adoption of the theory shaping ideas become apparent to us when we face the dramatic incompatibility in the form of paradoxes. 6.7 From Identifying Categories to Identifying

Category-Mistakes

The importance attached to paradox as a logical niche that takes us from the pragmatic level to the epistemic level of a performance is the result of the rejection of the possibility of a universal context. To show this, let us go back to the criticism made of Aristotle's 'assemblage theory of logical form'. The main criticism levelled against it is that it separates the theory of logic or reasoning from the theory of categories. Consequently the proposition is treated as if it is an assemblage of terms, the nature of which can be discerned prior to and independent of the nature of the proposition. If there is a universal context, 'meaning' can be conceived as the co-ordination of items of language with items of reality, and consequently one can take the view that factors can be identified prior to the identification of propositions, and this latter in turn is prior to the identification of the implication thread of which the propositions are a part.

21

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If one rejects the universal context, however, the possibility of the unambiguous co-ordination of the items of language with the items of reality vanishes and thereby also the possibility of uniformly splitting a proposition into factors. This means that identifying a factor as of a particular type depends upon identifying the proposition as of a particular type - this latter being again a function of the context of the assertion. Thus assertion as work done is prior to the proposition - in the sense of a linguistically identifiable unit. That is, instead of the combinatory procedure with regard to the specification of the 'thinking1, one begins with the assertion as work done in a context with the help of an expression, and then analytically arrives at units like 'proposition' and the 'factors of the proposition'. Specifying the logical form is not giving the rules of combination but exhibiting what can and cannot be said with a word. This in turn requires the identification of the implication thread of which a proposition is a constituent. In other words, the specification of meaning is derivative of the specification of the whole structure of differentiation, in a context of which an assertion is a part. The need to specify the implication thread prior to the specification of a proposition or the word would therefore mean a shift of the focus from Types' to the point at which there occurs a Type-trespass' (a precursor of Ryle's more famous term 'category-mistake').22 That is, instead of looking for the explication of one sign in terms of another, as happens in the case of category statements, one looks at the point at which the function of a sign conflicts with another, thereby drawing our attention to the extent and limits of a way of using a word. This becomes especially important in the case of clarifying heuristic ideas, or 'theory-shaping ideas' as Ryle calls them. The examples are the political metaphor of governing and the governed to look at the relation between different human capacities, or the mechanical metaphor of cause and effect to look at the same. The theoretical venture is shaped by such basic metaphors which would be built into models. 23 Such metaphors built into models become problematic especially when they are taken over from a particular technical field to inter-theory and inter-disciplinary discourse. Thus the assertion that logical form is prior to the terms making a proposition is only a half-way house; one has to go further and say that the logical terrain of concepts is prior to logical form. As a result, drawing the logical geography of concepts becomes a task prior to that of locating the logical form of a proposition. This in turn can be done only relative to a purpose. The situation of finding oneself in a quandary either at a personal level, or more important, at the level of a milieu located in an intellectual tradition, marks the context relative to which one can draw a logical geography of concepts. 22 23

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6.8 Arguments to Prove vs. Arguments to Make Things Understandable Since drawing the logical geography of concepts consists in specifying or showing the implication threads, it is primarily argumentative. But the arguments are meant to show a certain complex of implication-structure and not to prove some proposition to be true. Thus it must be clear why these arguments are not of such sorts where the conclusions of them is an independent piece of knowledge and can be entertained independently of the arguments. The arguments in conceptual enquiry are moves of identifying the implication threads and not of arriving at some conclusion. It is the argumentstructure itself that is of interest. In arguments meant to be proofs or justifications - for instance in inductive or deductive arguments - one can bifurcate the arguments into truths and justifications or proofs for them; there the argument is a means to some other end, whereas in conceptual enquiry, the arguments are not merely the means, but the ends themselves exhibiting the implication thread to discern which arguments are produced. Looked upon only as a system of drawing the conceptual connections, the idea of drawing a logical geography of concepts may not differ from Goodman's idea of a constructionalist system. However, if the knowing how approach is maintained consistently, the nature of the cognitive gain of such exercise should be seen in terms of the process itself, on the one hand, and the capacity gained on the other. That is, the importance of logical geography for Ryle lies in the process of drawing it and not in the logical geography viewed as a result. The process character may be conceived either in the way of a happening in the process of thinking here and now, or, in an extended sense, in the social milieu or tradition within which a debate takes place. But, in contrast to the knowledge communicable in propositions, the cognitive gain of the logical geography lies in teaching or learning how to draw the logical connections. That is, the performance functions as a training exercise. Or more appropriately, the performance is simultaneously a pragmatic action and an epistemic action, or, simultaneously a practical action and a learning action. Ryle calls thinking 'self-teaching'. The drawing of logical geography is thinkingly conducting the use of a cluster of concepts to differentiate the world in such a way that one teaches oneself how to do the thinkingly conducting of the differentiation practice, i.e. one trains oneself in the art of varying the forms of accessibility to the world in the very process of gaining access to the world. To engage in such differentiating actions, where doing to achieve a practical end of differentiation and doing differentiation in order to learn that art (semiotic action) are not separable, is what can be considered as a reformulation of Aristotle's theoria-ideal sans the notion of essences located in nature, the supposed anchor of a universal context.

Bibliography Apel, Karl-Otto, (1982) 'Sprechakttheorie und transzendentale Sprachpragmatik zur Frage ethischer Normen' in: ed. by ibid, Sprachpragmatik und Philosophie, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main, p. 10-173. Anscombe, G.E.M., Geach, P.T., (1973) 3 Philosophers: Aristotle, Aquinas, Frege, Blackwell, Oxford. Bach, E., Harms, R.T. (eds.), (1968) Universals in Linguistic Theory, Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc., New York. Baker, G.P., Hacker, P.M.S., (1984) Language, Sense & Nonsense, A Critical Investigation into Modern Theories of Language, Blackwell, Oxford. Barnes, J., Schofield, M., Sorabji, R. (eds.), Articles on Aristotle, Duckworth, London. (1975) Vol. 1: Science, (1976) Vol. 2: Ethics and Politics, (1979) Vol. 3: Metaphysics, (1979) Vol. 4: Psychology & Aesthetics Barnes, J., (1982) Aristotle, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Bieri, P., Horstmann, R.P., Krüger, L., (1979) Transcendental Arguments and Science, Essays in Epistemology, Synthese Library, Vol. 133, D. Reidel Publ. Company, Dordrecht. Black M. (1962) Models and Metaphors, Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Bloomfield, L., (1933) Language, New York. Brown, G., Yule, G., (1983) Discourse Analysis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bühler K. (1934, reprint, 1982) Sprachtheorie, Jena 1934, reprint, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart. Chomsky, N., (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, MIT Press. -, (1968) Language and Mind, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., New York. Cohen, R.S., Wartofsky, M.W. (eds.), (1985) A Portrait of Twenty-Five Years, Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science 1960-1985, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht. Cole, P., Morgan, T., (1975) Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3, Speech Acts, Academic Press, New York. Collingwood, R.G., (1940) An essay on Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Dilthey, W., (1984) Das Wesen der Philosophie, Reclam, Stuttgart. Doney, W. (ed.), (1986) Descartes, A Collection of Critical Essays, Modern Studies in Philosophy, Macmillan, London. Edwards, P., (1967, reprint 1972) (Editor in Chief), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 1-8, Collier Macmillan Publishers, London.

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Subject Index abstract vs. concrete questions, 135-8 'accusatives', 14; 29; 33; 38; 39-41; 50; 65; 98;99 acquaintance - non-semiotic, 10; 12; 40; 41; 145 - with objects, 8; 9; 11; 84 - with skills, 8 action-queries, 30 - vs. causal questions, 30-32 adequacy -descriptive, 119; 120; 146 -explanatory, 120; 121 agent vs. patient, 63 aitia, 53; 72 alphabetical view, 138; 141-3 analytical philosophy, 5; 7; 16; 34; 138;143 apodeixis, 58 arche, 72; 81 arguments - eristic, 60 - to make things understandable, 153 - to prove, 7; 153 artefact, 66-9; 70; 72; 73; 74; 79; 118 - semiotic, 117 artificer, 64; 66; 69; 70; 72; 73; 74 behaviourism, 107; 108 body politic, 70; 71 Cartesianism, 1; 3; 4; 5; 6; 8; 14; 2741; 44; 45; 47; 49; 50; 87; 124 category, 5; 7; 135; 138-45; 151; 152 - discipline, 45 - doctrine of, 88; 135 - habit, 4; 5 - mistake, 4; 7; 41-4; 45; 46; 48; 135 -theory of, 135; 138-45; 151 - theory of, & 'construction', 145 causal-queries, 30; 32 - vs. criterial questions, 30-32

change - Aristotle's understanding of, 63 code-symbolism, 146 cognitive gain, 7; 125; 146; 148; 153 competence, 6; 129 - vs. performance, 94-6; 118; 123 concepts vs. objects, 5; 6; 7 constitutive, 101; 103; 108; 109 constitutive rule, 100-2; 108; 109 'construction' - & theory of categories, 145 constructionalist, 148; 153 constructionist, 6; 111; 112 - vs. foundationalist, 6-7; 111-12 context - invariance, 2; 61-9; 79; 80; 82; 84 -universal, 10; 37; 88; 91; 123; 145; 151;152;153 criterial questions, 32, 108 demonstration, 52; 55; 58; 59; 60; 83 descriptive adequacy, 119; 120; 146 dialectical deduction, 56-61; 73; 79-82 didactic discourse, 32; 49; 56 dihoti, 24; 53; 54; 55 dilemmas, 134; 135 'doing', 7; 126; 129 -attentive, 126; 127; 130 -probative, 126; 127; 129; 130 - vs.'suffering', 7; 126 division of disciplines, - Aristotelian, 65-6; - by Hobbes, 74-5 empeiria, 53; 80 empiricist approaches, 137 endoxa, 56; 57; 81;82;133 enquiry - conceptual, 5; 7; 16; 87; 88; 113; 125;127-34; 136; 137; 148;153

Subject index

-empirical, 7; 87; 91; 95; 105; 106; 111;117;127 - factual, 42 - into concepts, 5; 6; 7 - into objects, 5; 6 episteme, 24; 49; 53; 55; 56; 81; 133 - vs. techne, 66-9 epistemological questions, 31 - vs. logical questions, 32 epistemology, - idea-centred, 36 eristic arguments, 60 'essence', 24; 26; 39; 40; 61; 79; 81; 82; 88; 153 explanatory adequacy, 120; 121 exploration, - empirical, 127 -reflective, 127-31 'familiar in nature', 56 'familiar to us', 56 'Fido'-Fido theory, 29 - see also meaning, theory of first philosophy, 52; 60; 77; 79; 136; 143 forms

- 'intellect-specific', 49 -intelligible, 67; 79 -logical, 137; 143; 151; 152 - sense-specific', 39; 49; 67 - 'sensible', 79 - vs. process, 63 foundationalist, 6; 7; 111; 112 - vs. constructionist, 6-7; 111-12 functionalism, 107; 108; 109 generative grammar, 119; 120; 121 generative rule, 100; 101; 108 grammar, -generative, 119; 120; 121 -logical, 91; 92; 97; 98; 103 historical-empirical, 4 hotl, 24; 53; 54; 55 'idea1, 3; 20; 34-8; 40; 50; 51; 52; 63; 76; 77; 81; 84; 100; 101;107;135 - crucial, 151 - logical powers of, 150-1 - theory shaping, 151 - vs. use of a word, 98

161

implication thread, 7; 132; 134; 137; 138; 143; 148-153 intellect, 15; 24-7; 39.40; 49; 62-3; 67; 68; 79-81 - capacity for reflection, 39; 49 intellectual knowledge, 67; 77; 79; 80 intellectualist doctrine, 39-41; 49 intellectualist legend, Ibid. intentionalism, 107; 108; 109 intentionality, 39-41 inter-theory questions, 16; 18; 19 KF, 112; 113; 114; 116; 117; 118; 119;122;123 'knowing how', 1; 8; 15; 23; 57; 65; 72; 87; 88; 90; 91; 103; 104; 105; 107; 110; 111; 122; 123;124; 128;129; 130;131;132; 134; 148; 149; 150; 153 'knowing that1, 1; 6; 8; 15; 23; 24; 54; 57; 87; 88; 123;124 'knowing why1, 24; 25; 26; 39; 54; 58; 71; 82 knowledge, 3; 6; 8; 9; 13; 51 - errorless source of, 50; 52; 60; 80; 81; 83 - Intellectual 67; 77; 79; 80 -model of, 1; 6; 9; 12; 149 -order of, 55; 56; 58; 83 - ratloclnatlve, 54; 55 - scientific, 2; 52; 53; 54 - vs. Opinion', 3; 25; 50; 51; 80 knowledge-domain, 83 knowledge-is-power-ideal, 63; 72 language, 6; 7; 37; 89; 90; 92; 93; 94; 95; 96; 97; 99; 102; 103; 105; 106; 109;110;112;113;114;115;116; 117;118;119;120;121;123;138; 139;141; 145; 146; 148; 149; 151; 152 - ideal language, 84; 141 - 'natural language', 97; 99; 115; 141 - Ordinary language', 6, 109; 112; 113;114;115; 116; 147; 148 - scientific language, 114 'langue', 96 'langue/parole', 94 linguistic analysis, 112; 113; 116

162

Subject index

linguistic philosophy, 7; 89; 90; 111; 113; 117; 122 linguistic theory, 89; 90; 111-20; 121 linguistic turn, 36; 89 linguistics, 89; 91; 92; 94; 95; 96; 106; 111; 112; 113; 114;116;117;118; 120 logical atomism, 36; 143; 145 logical form, 137; 143; 151; 152 logical geography, 135; 152; 153 logical grammar, 91; 92; 97; 98; 103 logical interest, 31 logical powers, 150; 151 logical syntax, 97; 98; 100 making things understandable, 8; 61; 82;134; 142 - arguments to, 153 map metaphor, 147; 148; 149 meaning, - 'Fido'-Fido theory, 29 - name theory 29; 45; 46 -theory of, 13; 15; 29; 34; 36; 44; 45;46; 118; 141; 143 - theory of, separated from theory of logic, 45 - word-centred theory, 36 'meanings', 37; 46; 98; 99; 100; 103; 107 meaning-action, 40 medieval Aristotelians, 56 Meditations, 2; 50; 52; 80 'men of experience', 53; 54 'men who can teach', 54 mental action, 3; 13; 14; 40 'mental science', 33; 37 meta-philosophy, 41; 44 method, 2; 3; 6; 10; 22; 23; 25; 26; 30; 32; 42; 49; 50; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61; 71; 72; 73; 75; 76; 78; 79; 80; 81; 82; 83; 84;103;107;112;113; 115;117;135;136;137;139; 140; 141; 143; 144; 148; 151 - analytical, 76 - demonstration, 52; 55; 58- 60; 83 - dialectical deduction, 56- 60; 61; 73;79;82 - as inference modes, 56; 58 -of doubt, 2; 82

- of investigation, 56 - way of discovering, 54 - way of teaching, 5; 25; 54-61; 83 - transcendental, 84; 144 - various senses of, 12 mind, 3; 27; 33; 42; 51; 75; 76; 77; 80; 81; 83; 98; 99; 126 -philosophy of, 29; 41; 47 - theory of, 26; 27; 35; 42; 47 - thinking substance, 80 model of knowledge, 1;9; 12; 149 - argumentative, 12 - prepositional, 1; 6; 50; 52; 61; 63; 74; 87 modern period, 6; 30; 42; 49; 50; 57; 60; 73 motion, 70; 72; 74; 75; 76; 77; 78 - 'internal', 74; 76 natural kinds, 39; 49; 61; 79; 142; 143;145 natural philosophy, 72; 73; 75; 76; 77; 79 nature,\3; 24; 39; 66; 67; 68; 80; 83 -orderof, 55; 56; 58; 59; 83 non-semiotic acquaintance, 10; 12; 40; 41; 145 object-approach, 8; 13; 90; 116; 121; 123;131; 135; 137 observant stance, 103; 122 OLP, 112; 113; 114; 116; 122 order of knowledge, 55; 56; 58; 83 order of nature, 55; 56; 58; 59; 83 Ordinary language', 6, 109; 112; 113; 114;115;116; 147; 148 orexis, 64 pars demonstrativ a, 59 pars inventiva, 59 participant stance, 103; 107; 108; 119 pathemata, 57 perception-oriented approach, 111 performance vs. schema, 130 phenomenological questions, 31-2; 47 philosophical analysis, 113; 116 ' philosophical tradition, 7; 8; 15; 18; 26; 27; 28; 49; 62; 87; 88; 138 philosophical-systematic - vs. historical-empirical, 4

Subject index

philosophy - analytical, 5; 7; 16; 34; 138; 143 - as mental science, 33; 37 - as seeking definitions, 136; 138 - first, 52; 60; 77; 79; 136; 143 - ideal language, 138-9 - linguistic, 7; 89; 90; 111-22 - meta-, 41; 44 - natural, 72; 73; 75; 76; 77; 79 -of mind, 29; 41; 47 -of language, 112; 117 - theory of, 45; 47; 135 phronesis, 68 physis, 66 platonism, 28; 37-9; 41; 43 platonist, 47 'principles', 52; 54; 58; 72; 74; 83 - 'first principles', 77 - scientific 61 'potential', 65; 68 - vs. actual, 63 - actualisation of, 65-8; 79 proposition factors, 137; 142 propositional model, 1; 6; 50; 52; 61; 63; 74; 87 psyche, 26 psychologism, 33-7; 38; 39; 41; 43 questions - abstract, 135 - causal, 30; 32 - concrete, 135; 136 - criterial, 32; 108 - epistemological, 31 -inter-theory, 16; 18; 19 - logical questions, 32 - phenomenological, 31; 32; 47 ratiocinative knowledge, 54; 55 reflection, 1; 4; 5; 6; 7; 14; 24; 26; 37; 39; 40; 47; 49; 50; 85; 87; 88; 90; 95; 105; 107; 111; 112;116;123;125; 126;128-31; 132; 135; 149; 150 - map metaphor, 147; 148; 149 reflective exploration, 127-31 relativist vs. absolutist, 124 rule, 19; 34; 36; 73; 81; 92; 95; 97; 98; 100;101; 102;103; 107;108;109; 110; 113; 118;141;152 -constitutive, 100-2; 108; 109

163

-generative, 100; 101; 108 - and 'acceptability', 102 'schema', 125-6; 128-9; 130; 140; 150 - vs. 'actualisation', 7; 125-6 science, 1; 2; 3; 28; 38; 42; 46; 47; 49; 50; 58; 59; 72; 79; 87; 90; 106; 132; 133;144 - as true descriptions 87 - as presentation, 83 - as a discourse, 87 sign-action, 14; 40; 84; 87; 100; 109; 127;128;130;140; 146 skill, 3; 7; 16; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 26; 43; 69; 87; 90; 93; 96; 103; 105; 106; 109;110; 114; 115; 116; 123; 124; 125;126; 127;128;130;132;133 social anthropology, 107 sophia, 24; 68 speech, 6; 85; 87; 89; 91-6; 97; 99; 102; 105;106;107;109;110;111; 115;116;122;127;131;132;134; 138;144;150 - domain-constitutive, 82 - domain-describing, 82 - object-constitutive, 6; 143 - object-describing, 6; 82; 122; 127 - reflective exercise of, 106; 126; 132 - vs. language, 96-103 'suffering 1 , 7; 126 - vs. 'doing', 7: 126 systematic ambiguities, 149 techne, 67; 69; 80; 133 theoria, 39; 62; 72; 79; 88; 126 theoria-ideal, 63; 153 theories - heuristic, 118-24; 133 - nomological, 118-24; 133 theory - , linguistic, 89; 90; 111-20; 121 - of argumentation, 45 -of categories, 135; 138-45; 151 -of logic, 45; 46; 141; 151 -of mind, 26; 27; 35; 42; 47 -of philosophy, 45; 47; 135 - of reasoning, 141 theory-constructing, 30-2; 47; 49; 133 - vs. exposition, 32; 49 - vs. theory-possessing, 32

164

Subject index

- vs. theory-using, 32; 49 things that have become, - vs. that are made 63; 66; 72; 74; 80 thinking, 18; 19; 20; 21; 26; 29; 30-41; 42;43;47;98;125;149;152 - adverbial view, 87; 88; 125 - as 'self-teaching', 153 thinkingly doing something, 125; 126 thought, see 'thinking' - logically prior to its elements, 36 'token', 126; 139 'type1, 125 type-heterogeneities, 140-1 type-homogeneities, 140-1 Type-trespass, 152 universal context, 10; 37; 88; 91; 123; 145;151; 152; 153

use of terms, - contrast!ve, 91 - definitional, 93 wie of words, 92; 97-100; 101; 103-5 107;113-16; 139 - 'non-stock', 115; 116 - Ordinary' 114 - 'philosophical', 87 - reflexive use, 91; 96 -'scientific 1 , 114; 115 - 'stock', 115 - vs. usage, 92; 97; 103-5; 107 - vs. 'ideas' & 'meanings', 98-100 -vs. utility, 92; 103; 104; 107 widerfahrnis, 126

Name-index Acquinas, 69 Apel,91; 143 Aristotle, 2; 6; 7; 9; 24; 26; 39; 49; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74; 77; 79; 80; 81; 82; 83; 88; 126; 138;141;143;151; 153 Augustine, 59 Bergman., 139 Bradley, 14; 34 Brentano, 34; 38; 46 Bühler , 11 Carnap, 114 Chomsky, 94; 95; 96; 118; 119; 121; 122; 124 Collingwood, 4; 22; 23 Descartes, 2; 3; 6; 28; 50; 51; 52; 60; 73; 76; 77; 78; 79; 80; 81; 82; 83; 84 Fodor,6; 112; 120; 121 Frege, 34; 38; 46 Galileo, 72; 73 Gassendi, 137 Gerhardus., 114; 127 Goodman, 10; 46; 147; 148; 149; 153 Grice, 132 Hacking, 61 Halliday, 123 Hobbes, 6; 52; 54; 55; 57; 59; 60; 62; 63; 69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74; 75; 76; 77; 79;81;82;136;137;138 Hume, 29; 34 Husserl, 28; 34; 38; 46; 97; 143; 144; 145

Kant, 7; 80; 84; 88; 143; 144; 145 Katz, 6; 89; 112 Laudan, 73 Lear, 64 Leibniz, 11; 32; 59 Locke, 14; 17; 18; 20; 30; 33; 36; 37; 50; 52; 60; 61; 83; 135 Lorenz, 30; 127; 128 Meinong, 20; 38 Mill, 33; 36; 37; 38; 142 Peirce, 119 Plato, 64 Quine, 10; 21; 119 Rickert, 11 Russell, 46 Rosenberg, 36 Ryle, l; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 22; 23; 24; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 49; 50; 62; 87; 88; 89; 90; 91; 92; 93; 94; 96; 97; 98; 99; 101; 103; 104; 105; 106;107; 110;112;114;115;116; 118;122; 125;126;131;135;137;138;139; 140;141; 143; 144; 145; 146; 148; 149;151; 152; 153 Saussure, 94; 95; 96; 118 Sextus Empiricus, 133 Strawson, 143 Winch, 107 Whitehead, 119 Wittgenstein, 16; 46; 97; 100; 117