Is it metaphysically possible for entities that are truly separate to ever interact. This is a very difficult question to answer without being implicitly influenced by the conditioning that our everyday experiences impose on us. We appear to see separate objects interact with each other all the time. This makes the aforementioned question seem very bizarre indeed.
While I personally suspect that it is in fact not possible this is nonetheless a very difficult contention to prove either way, even to myself. There is however a form of interaction which makes the above question seem somewhat more tractable - communication.
I have never formally studied philosophy myself but upon speaking to several people who have there seems to a common surprise about how much emphasis is placed on language and meaning in philosophy courses, perhaps an area one might intuitively assume to play a relatively minor role in philosophy. Wittgenstein was beguiled with this aspect of philosophy and devoted pretty much his entire philosophy career on pursuing the implications of the mere fact that communication is possible between individuals.
The subject of language and meaning had absolutely no prima facia appeal to me whatsoever. It does sound like rather a dull subject doesn't it? It did to me to. However since discovering this area of philosophy I have found that no other line of intellectual enquiry gets my juices flowing more than this very topic (I'm sad aren't I?) What was so surprising and unexpected is the range of fascinating philosophical questions this area of philosophy relates to. What is the limit of human knowledge? What does it mean to think? What exactly is thought? How are we able to make sense of our own thoughts? How do we experience the world? What is the relationship between our perceptions and what is really out there? In fact there is only one type of philosophical enquiry which interests me more than these kind of questions - why is there something rather than nothing, but more on that later (I need to get out more).
The conclusions that can be drawn from the mere fact we are able to understand each other when we speak are astounding. What it says about the way the world must be, or perhaps more importantly how the world cannot be, are both profound and mind blowing.
Some of the more amibitious questions such as how we are able to make sense of our own thoughts probably lie beyond the realms of current human understanding, at least if tackled in a non-trivial way. We probably have to step outside of language in a way we are currently not able to in order to properly grapple with this. Perhaps we can't meaningfully take on this problem for a similiar reason that chimpanzees can't do differential calculus. Chimpanzees don't possess the relevant conceptual capacity to take on abstract mathematic operations in the same way that we don't possess the relevant conceptual capacity to take on philosophical conundrums such as these.
I have found to date that all the ambitious claims made by philosophers declaring to have solved the problem of meaning have always on close inspection turned out to be fallacious. When examining the details of their accounts one always finds the problem to be explained away rather than explained (a big difference). I find this also of Wittgenstein's later work Philosophical Investigations. That is not to say that what he wrote down was a load of rubbish. He made important and valid observations on how language works, and in a relatively non-trivial way did explain how it is we are able to understand each other. But there are different levels this can be tackled. One can for instance explore the mundane features of language, it's structure and dynamics. This could be through looking at standard linguistic problems such as grammar and how this enables people through a system of rules to communicate. And also by looking at the nature of how languages evolve over time. This is all relevant to the question of how we are able to communicate with each other. These kind of enquiries, as interesting as they can be, are mundane in the sense that they don't tackle the more profound aspects of language. To look into this deeper aspect involves grappling with issues such as how meaning is possible at all, and precisely how it is thoughts are able to be transferred between minds. It is this latter point which ultimately tells us something about the nature of the world.
I wish first of all to closely examine Wittgenstein's early work entitled Tracatus, after which I want to do the same with Philosophical Investigations. The latter was an outright repudiation of his early work. Wittgenstein spent the second half of his career ripping apart his previous ideas on how language works, and seemed to enjoy doing so. He layed into it left right and centre, seemingly on a one man mission to undo the huge influence his early work Tractatus had in philosophy at that time. His new ideas could reasonably be considered the exact polar extreme of his older ones (although perhaps not true in every single respect). My reasons for focussing on Wittgenstein are by no means arbitrary, as I will eventually make clear.
It is vital to understand at the outset in what respects we are able to stand outside of language. Language captures many elements of our experience of the world, but not all of them. For instance consider someone who is colour blind. There is no way to communicate through language what it is like to see colour. It could in principle be explained to this person everything relating to the physiology and perception of sight, exhaustively covering every detail that could possibly be known about this. If this person's sight was fully restored after such a discourse and he saw colour for the first time he would learn something new, precisely what it feels like to see colour. This is because language hasn't been able to provide him with this experience. It stands outside of language. The manner and extent we can stand outside language is fixed firmly by our senses. It is vital to embrace this fact before diving into Wittgenstein's early ideas on how language works.
The subject of language and meaning had absolutely no prima facia appeal to me whatsoever. It does sound like rather a dull subject doesn't it? It did to me to. However since discovering this area of philosophy I have found that no other line of intellectual enquiry gets my juices flowing more than this very topic (I'm sad aren't I?) What was so surprising and unexpected is the range of fascinating philosophical questions this area of philosophy relates to. What is the limit of human knowledge? What does it mean to think? What exactly is thought? How are we able to make sense of our own thoughts? How do we experience the world? What is the relationship between our perceptions and what is really out there? In fact there is only one type of philosophical enquiry which interests me more than these kind of questions - why is there something rather than nothing, but more on that later (I need to get out more).
The conclusions that can be drawn from the mere fact we are able to understand each other when we speak are astounding. What it says about the way the world must be, or perhaps more importantly how the world cannot be, are both profound and mind blowing.
Some of the more amibitious questions such as how we are able to make sense of our own thoughts probably lie beyond the realms of current human understanding, at least if tackled in a non-trivial way. We probably have to step outside of language in a way we are currently not able to in order to properly grapple with this. Perhaps we can't meaningfully take on this problem for a similiar reason that chimpanzees can't do differential calculus. Chimpanzees don't possess the relevant conceptual capacity to take on abstract mathematic operations in the same way that we don't possess the relevant conceptual capacity to take on philosophical conundrums such as these.
I have found to date that all the ambitious claims made by philosophers declaring to have solved the problem of meaning have always on close inspection turned out to be fallacious. When examining the details of their accounts one always finds the problem to be explained away rather than explained (a big difference). I find this also of Wittgenstein's later work Philosophical Investigations. That is not to say that what he wrote down was a load of rubbish. He made important and valid observations on how language works, and in a relatively non-trivial way did explain how it is we are able to understand each other. But there are different levels this can be tackled. One can for instance explore the mundane features of language, it's structure and dynamics. This could be through looking at standard linguistic problems such as grammar and how this enables people through a system of rules to communicate. And also by looking at the nature of how languages evolve over time. This is all relevant to the question of how we are able to communicate with each other. These kind of enquiries, as interesting as they can be, are mundane in the sense that they don't tackle the more profound aspects of language. To look into this deeper aspect involves grappling with issues such as how meaning is possible at all, and precisely how it is thoughts are able to be transferred between minds. It is this latter point which ultimately tells us something about the nature of the world.
I wish first of all to closely examine Wittgenstein's early work entitled Tracatus, after which I want to do the same with Philosophical Investigations. The latter was an outright repudiation of his early work. Wittgenstein spent the second half of his career ripping apart his previous ideas on how language works, and seemed to enjoy doing so. He layed into it left right and centre, seemingly on a one man mission to undo the huge influence his early work Tractatus had in philosophy at that time. His new ideas could reasonably be considered the exact polar extreme of his older ones (although perhaps not true in every single respect). My reasons for focussing on Wittgenstein are by no means arbitrary, as I will eventually make clear.
It is vital to understand at the outset in what respects we are able to stand outside of language. Language captures many elements of our experience of the world, but not all of them. For instance consider someone who is colour blind. There is no way to communicate through language what it is like to see colour. It could in principle be explained to this person everything relating to the physiology and perception of sight, exhaustively covering every detail that could possibly be known about this. If this person's sight was fully restored after such a discourse and he saw colour for the first time he would learn something new, precisely what it feels like to see colour. This is because language hasn't been able to provide him with this experience. It stands outside of language. The manner and extent we can stand outside language is fixed firmly by our senses. It is vital to embrace this fact before diving into Wittgenstein's early ideas on how language works.
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