> William writes: > > "Cheerskep is our trained philosopher here. I expect philosophy, not 19C > cane-whacking outbursts like "Balderdash, What nonsense!". Such expressions > are fairly annoying although quaintly painless because they lack the authority > required to confront a scientist lkike Hauser. I hope Cheerskep does not > have one of his actors blurt "Balderdash" in a play unless he's doing a > Victorian redux." > Aw, shoot, William. I hoped that the context conveyed I was poking fun at the view...
"commonsense logic is akin to what > linguists say about the innate parameters of language -- an a-priori > constraint for word order: either subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb....all require a subject, a verb, an object to make sense." > > > "Nah. Balderdash. What nonsense." ...while retaining a sense of humor. All three of my entries there "make sense" without the allegedly required subject-verb-object. I was doing the same with my later phrase, "Good riddance." I restrained myself from writing, "Egad!" and "Good Lord, William!" William, do you feel there is nothing worthy about my objection? You mustn't accept the "linguists" as unimpeachable authorities, any more than you'd accept any philosopher you can name. I'll junk my jocular Victorian locutions and just assert in flavorless English: The linguist's position as described above is wrong, false, in error. One-word utterances, simple gestures, the simple image on ther Ladies Room door -- they all can "make sense" (in the serviceable sense you and I are now accepting for this discussion). Meantime I rebel at "I do think gestures and grunts of all sorts can stand for verbs." But they "AREN'T" verbs. "Stand for" is the kind of term that, in the papers of many philosophers of the last century, signalled that they were about to change what the other guys actually said because they couldn't cope with it in the form the speaker offered it -- i.e. it did not suit the philosopher's assumed lexicon or ontology. It's comparable to what I was alluding to in my last posting (below) when I cite philosophers who begin, "What he's actually saying..." and "We're just filling in the elisions. They are assumed by the speaker." And please look again at what I said about zero-copula languages. I didn't say they have "no verbs at all". They don't have 'am', 'is', or 'are'. And some often evidently do an interesting thing where we would say, "The grass is green." English translators tend to render the Malaysian phrase as, "The grass greens." I'm not sure that does justice to what's in the mind of the Malaysian speaker -- but I confess I don't know. The other thing I have to confess is, I was wrong to attack Hauser's book when I haven't read it, and all I had in hand was a paraphrase of what seemed like an extraordinarily weak argument by him. And, dammit, I knew I was wrong while I was doing it but I charged ahead anyhow. I shouldn't have. ***** William's posting in its entirety: I think Cheerskep should look at Marc Hauser's book before making spurious comments. Marc Hauser is Professor of Biological Anthropology Director of Cognitive Evolution Lab plus other posts at Harvard. Hauser anticipates Cheerskep style objections in his preface and introduction and deals with them handily. He is, of course, a Chomsky fan, to a point. Cheerskep is our trained philosopher here. I expect philosophy, not 19C cane-whacking outbursts like "Balderdash, What nonsense!". Such expressions are fairly annoying although quaintly painless because they lack the authority required to confront a scientist lkike Hauser. I hope Cheerskep does not have one of his actors blurt "Balderdash" in a play unless he's doing a Victorian redux. I'm willing to learn new ideas and try to read the most expert people if I can find them and understand their ideas. I can't think of a language that has no verbs. I do think gestures and grunts of all sorts can stand for verbs among certain groups fully conditioned by their social prqactices. But no verbs at all? As for intuitive morality, Hauser carefully explains to the eye-rolling layman at the outset that many variables must be considered in different cases when group or societaql values replace the instinctual impulse. IS is a perfectly good carriage for our metaphors. It carries our meanings outward in make-believe. It's quite simple and universally understood. Cheerskep want to pick a fight but all the toughies are wandering off. WC --- On Sun, 7/27/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: "An 'aesthetic experience' MAKES the work 'art'" > To: [email protected] > Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008, 1:51 PM > William writes: > > > "What I mean by commonsense logic is akin to what > linguists say about the > > innate parameters of language -- an a-priori > constraint for word order: > either > > subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb....all > require a subject, a verb, > > an object to make sense. > > > "Nah. Balderdash. What nonsense." > > Even William doesn't believe it. How could he when just > two days ago he wrote > that a simple elbow in the ribs is sufficient to convey a > notion? > > This quasi-Chomskian deluded notion about the "deep > structure" of language > has breathed its last, I hope. Good riddance. One of the > things that began to > undermine my faith in mathematical/symbolic/existential > logic was my noticing > how often its practitioners would take someone else's > statement and tell us, > "Here's what he's really saying," and > they'd put it into math-logic format -- > introducing all sorts of text-elements that weren't in > the original guy's > utterance. "We're just filling in the elisions. > They are assumed by the > speaker." > > Linguists tend to do the same. Look up "zero > copula" languages. They > regularly lack 'is', 'am', and > 'are'. Don't expect they'll all be > "primitive" > languages. Chinese, Indonesian, Russian, Arabic, Irish, > Aztec, and many more > -- even > ASL: American sign language. "Oh, well, the verb is > assumed." > > Remember the early-movie parodies of English spoken by the > Indians and the > Chinese immigrants? "You good man. Him crook." > Since over half the people on > this globe were born and brought up with no 'is', > 'am', or 'are', it's hard to > believe they are "assuming" they never herd > about. "But they MUST be > assuming > it, or their utterance wouldn't make sense!" Not > to you, maybe. > > William refers us to Hauser's "Moral Minds", > and says, "He makes a claim for > an intuitive moral sense by which we instantly know what is > morally, ethically > right or wrong through unconscious innate logic that is > genetically
