Bertrand russel on semantics
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Transcript of Bertrand russel on semantics
Russellian Semantics
M. Phil ( Applied Linguistics)
Presented to Professor Muhammad Aslam
Presenters:
Arshad Ahmad
Madiha Majeed
OutlineBiography of Russell
Russellian Semantics
•Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by
Russell
•Logically Perfect Language
•Knowledge by acquaintance versus knowledge by description
•Russell on Definite Description
•Truth Value
•Video
•Russell’s views on Language
•Ambiguity in Language (words/phrases)
•Language and World View
•Definite Descriptions/ Comparative study of Russell and Ordinary
Language Philosophers
•Activity (Math)
•Arabic Language and Ambiguity/Quine’s Views on Language and Logic
•Conclusion
Biography
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl
Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970). He was
born into one of the most prominent aristocratic
families in the United Kingdom. He was
a British philosopher, logician, mathematician,
historian, writer, social critic, political activist and
Nobel laureate in literature . He considered himself
a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist.
A Versatile Writer
If any twentieth-century author may be called a
versatile writer due to his broad and diverse interests
then Russell is one. He wrote almost on every
subject such as politics, religion, history, psychology,
linguistics, science, history, literature, mathematics,
sociology and ethics to name a few of them.
Introduction to MR. WITTGENSTEIN’S Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by RussellAccording to Russell, Wittgenstein discussed the principles of Symbolismand the relations between words and things in any language inTractatus. Then he applies the result of his inquiry to traditionalphilosophy.He showed some of the issues in traditional philosophy and theirsolutions arise out of ignorance of the principles of Symbolism or out ofmisuse of language.
Characteristics of Logically Perfect Language:
•A logically perfect language has rules of syntax which prevent nonsense
sentences.
•A single symbol has always a definite and unique meaning.
Knowledge by acquaintance versus knowledge by description
Russell (1912) holds that we can refer an object directly only if we
are directly acquainted with it which means to cognize it without the
intermediary of any process of inference.
He is of the view that only absolute simples are possible objects of
acquaintance.
They comprise sense data, one’s own inner states and certain
universals (General words such as ‘man’ or ‘cat’ or ‘triangle’ are said to
denote ‘universals’).
Acquaintance is a direct, non-judgmental and non-conceptual form
of awareness that Russell took to be crucial for both forms of knowledge
i.e., knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description.
Russell on Definite Description
Russell says definite expressions unlike proper
names do not refer to individuals. They describe but do
not denote. To prove this, he gives examples of definite
descriptions such as the present king of France, the round
square and the golden mountain.
•No language ; No progress (Humans versus Animals)
•Brain (Hardware); Language/Culture (Software)
•Language is like tools. No count numbers, no mathematics, no
engineering.
In Philippine people have 92 words for rice, in Solomon
Islands people have 9 words for coconut representing its
different stages of growth. Some languages(Hopi in America)
do not have future tense.
• Language helps in thinking clearly and expressing our
thoughts convincingly although thinking is possible without
words.
•Significance of language in daily life
•Imaginary numbers
•Issue of equivocal expressions (Unzurna, Raaena) Ayaat
e Mutashabehat
the student of Plato who taught Alexander; Hunting dogs
•Our thinking is determined by our language. Linguistic
determinism(Sapir-Whorf video)
• (Tools determine what you can mend)
Hegel believes alphabetically written words
express our thoughts more clearly and
distinctly, whereas, Russel and Huxley believes
that Chinese heiroglyphics describes inter-
relationship of different things aptly.
Misuses of Language:
George Orwell says: Political language is designed to make lies
sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance
of solidity to pure wind.
Newspeak is a variant of English in which vocabulary is
strictly limited by government fiat. The goal is to make it
increasingly difficult to express ideas that contradict the official
line - and, in time, even to conceive such ideas.
(cf. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis).
Gottlob Frege Ludwig Witgenstein
‘Philosophical Investigations’
Bertrand Russell
The reference or "referent" of a proper name is the object
it means or indicates, its sense is what the name expresses.
The reference of a sentence is its truth value, its sense is
the thought that it expresses.
Proper names and descriptions have both sense and
reference.
Meaning determines truth conditions.
In Fregean terms, the sense of a sentence (a thought)
determines
its reference (a truth value).
Compositionality: The meaning of an expression is a
function of
the meanings of its parts.
In order to compute the meaning of an expression, look up
the
meanings of the basic expressions forming it and
successively
compute the meanings of larger parts until a meaning for
the
whole expression is found.
Wittgenstein says that a proposition is presentation of a thought. Factual
language is like description of pictures which correspond with reality. They
can be described as true. But all pictures at least describe a possible state of
affairs. Here we can see a connection between Wittgenstein’s account of
language and the idea of possible worlds which was developed by later
philosophers of ordinary language.
What is thinkable is also possible and what is thinkable can also be expressed
in a proposition. Therefore, a spoken or written sentence ( an Utterence=
perceptible signs) is a projection of possible state of affairs. Hence, his account
is truth-conditional one. He defines meanings in terms of the possible situation
which would make a proposition true.
Wittgenstein’s ideas in his later work Philosophical Investigations are different
than his ideas in Tractatus.
Tractatus offers a uniform account of the nature of language. It is defined in
terms of proposition and its role in expressing thought. But in his later work ,
he openly and explicitly rejects this idea of general account of propositions.
Now he sees language as a collection of different activities instead of being a
uniform phenomenon. He refers these different activities as ‘Language games’.
Hence, language is basically an activity. There are countless different language
games because there are countless, and ever changing, ways in which people
use language. For instance, giving orders, reporting an event or making a joke
etc.
In Tractatus , he says the name means the object. But in Philosophical
Investigations he rejects the idea that there can be any straightforward
relationship between words and objects. Therefore, meaning of a word should
be defined as its use in the language. So a word does not have one fixed
meaning but a family of meanings.
Russell says that the sentence “The present king of France is
bald.” is false because the ‘present king of France’ does not
exist. Hence, this proposition cannot be true.
According to Frege this sentence introduces a presupposition
that the definite description does refer that an individual
exists. In a situation when this is not in fact the case, the
sentence would fail to have a truth value. This is an
unfortunate example of an imperfection in language.
But Russell differs with Frege and says proper names and
definite description such as ‘the present king of France’ are
not same expressions. He says definite expressions do not
refer to individuals. They are not genuine referring
terms.They describe but do not denote. To prove this, he
gives examples of definite descriptions such as the round
square and the golden mountain which do not refer to
anything in the world.
‘The present king of France’ is a definite description. This
phrase seems to denote unique individual. But there is no
individual to which this expression refers. That is why it is
false.
Russell says proper names do not just denote rather they
directly refer to an object. He considers the demonstrative
‘this’ a proper name in the sense that it refers directly to one
object and does not describe the object at all.
Table-1
Peter Frederick Strawson(1919-2006) Rudolf Carnap (1897-1970) J.L. Austin (1911-1960)
Strawson attacks Russell for his misplaced attempt to
‘purify language’.
The use of definite descriptions presupposes the
existence of their referents. To use
them does not normally amount to saying that their
referents exist, or more broadly
to say something which logically entails that they
exist.
The cash value of the distinction between
presupposition and entailment is this:
If P entails Q, then if Q is false then P is false.
If P presupposes Q, then if Q is false then P is neither
true nor false.
Thus speaker’s meaning can be distinguished
sharply from semantic meaning: whereas the latter is
determined by linguistic
rules governing the use of expressions, the former is
determined by various special
intentions of the speaker, including Grice’s
cooperative maxims (thus conversational
implicature is most plausibly reckoned a matter of
speaker meaning
Rudolf Carnap( 1956: Meaning and Necessity)
Frege, Russell and Carnap were mainly concerned
with the philosophy of mathematics and attempted to
explain language in terms of regularities of
mathematics. Carnap was eager to produce a perfect
language which would obey logical rules unlike the
ordinary language.
Terms:
.Mr. John owns a Volvo Estate.
2. Mr. John owns a car.
3. Mr. John does not own a car.
4. Mr.John exists. (Presupposition)
There is no truth –functional relation between 1 and
4.
Meanings of words are made up of both an extension
and an intension.
Extension(an actual object or property
named)=Reference
Sense=Intension=Content of
thought=Proposition(Statement, Claim, Belief)
Truth value of a sentence= Meaning of a sentence
Presupposition: Have you stopped watching TV?
Managed and stopped are verbs which introduce
presupposition. Whereas ‘knew’ and ‘believed’ are
factive verbs
J.L. Austin drew a distinction between the meaning
of an expression and its function. Austin:
Performatives and constatives (denoting a
speech act or sentence that is a statement
declaring something to be the case.)
Happy/unhappy; felicitous/infelicitous;
appropriate/inappropriate speech acts.
A constative may be true or false but a performative
cannot be declared true or false. It is
appropriate or inappropriate.(Book; How to
do things with words)
GibertRyle(1900-1976) says: It is the use of a word
which should be considered in any
discussion not the word itself. In his article
‘The theory of meaning’, he argues that the
man Hilary , is the meaning of the phrase the
first man to stand on the top of Mt. Everest.
He argues that this is impossible; meanings
are not born and do not die and they never
wear boots. In ‘Philosophical investigations’,
Ryle claims, Wittgenstein realized that ‘the
use of an expression or the concept it
expresses , is the role it is employed to
perform , nor any thing , person or event for
which it might be supposed to stand.
If a=1b=1
1 - 1 = 1- 1
Second Method:
(a+b) (a-b) = a-b
(a+b) (a-b)/ (a-b) = a-b/a-b
L H S = a + b = 1+ 1= 2
R H S = a – b/ a – b = 1
False Result
Say not (to the Prophet), O Believers: "Have regard for us (ra'ina)," but "look at us (unzurna)," and obey him in what he says. Painful is
the nemesis for disbelievers. (2:104)Ahmed Ali
Allah states that in the Qur'an, there are Ayat that are Muhkamat, entirely clear and plain, and these are the foundations of the Book which are plain for everyone. And there are Ayat in the Qur'an that are
Mutashabihat not entirely clear for many, or some people. So those who refer to the Muhkam Ayat to understand the Mutashabih Ayat, will have acquired the correct guidance, and vice versa. This is why Allah
said,
﴿ُهنَّ أُمُّ اْلِكتَـِب﴾(They are the foundations of the Book), meaning, they are the basis of the Qur'an, and should be referred to for clarification, when warranted,
﴿َوُأَخُر ُمَتَشـِبَهـٌت﴾(And others not entirely clear) as they have several meanings, some that agree with the Muhkam and some that carry other literal indications, although these meaning might not be desired.
The Muhkamat are the Ayat that explain the abrogating rulings, the allowed, prohibited, laws, limits, obligations and rulings that should be believed in and implemented. As for the Mutashabihat Ayat, they
include the abrogated Ayat, parables, oaths, and what should be believed in, but not implemented.
Muhammad bin Ishaq bin Yasar commented on,
The Problem having the informative aspect
solely: incorrect picture of the whole
Blind men and the Elephant
Carnap, in his famous book Logical Syntax of Language (1934), advanced his Principle of
Tolerance, according to which there is not any such thing as a "true" or "correct" logic or
language. One is free to adopt whatever form of language is useful for one's purposes.
Philosophy should be piecemeal and provisional like
science; final truth belongs to heaven, not to this
world. Russell: An Outline of Philosophy.
Summary•Truth Value
•Russell’s views on Language
•Ambiguity in Language (words/phrases)
•Language and World View
• Comparative study of Russell and Ordinary Language
Philosophers
•Activity (Math)
•Arabic Language and Ambiguity/Quine’s Views on Language
and Logic
•Conclusion
References:
Carnap, R. (2000). Logical Syntax of Language. New York : Routledge.
Frege, G. (1980). On Sense and Reference. Oxford: Blackwell.
Russell, B. (1912). The Problems of Philosophy. London: Oxford University Press.
Russell, B. (1927). An Outline of Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin.
Russell, B. (1940). An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: Allen & Unwin.
New York: W. W. Norton.
Russell, B. (1946). A History of Western Philosophy. London: Allen & Unwin.
Russell, B. (1948). Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: Allen & Unwin.
Russell, B. (1950). The Principles of Mathematics, London: Allen & Unwin.
Russell, B. (1956). Portraits from Memory, London: Allen & Unwin.
Russell, B. (1960). Nightmares of Eminent Persons. London: Allen & Unwin.
Wittgenstein, L. (2001).Tractatus Logico – Philosophicus. London: Routledge