{ Sunday, March 16, 2003 }
From the Buffalo Poetics Listserv:
"The government's argument summons from obscurity an abstruse problem -- that because no rule can determine its own application, it may appear that there can be no binding rule -- that was picked apart on the philosophical dissecting table toward the middle of the last century by Ludwig Wittgenstein, and since has ceased to vex those inclined to contemplate such matters," Judge Mukasey wrote.
"There is a way of grasping a rule that is not an interpretation," Judge Mukasey quoted Wittgenstein, triumphantly and with thrilling erudition.
The text of Judge Mukasey's March 11 ruling in Jose Padilla v. Donald Rumsfeld is here (see footnote 5): (pdf)
LINK | 9:31 PM | TB
This judge knows his Wittgenstein. By citing Philosophical Investigations #198 he proves that that he understands the depth of Wittgenstein's argument about rules and private language.
A superficial view (in my opinion) holds that the private language argument appears abruptly at #258. (The private language argument is a fascinating thought experiment about whether it would be possible to communicate only with yourself, not with other people. The short answer is "no," but I digress).
Many scholars believe the private language argument is actually a natural progression of the more essential discussion of rules that begins at #198.
Wittgenstein is wiping the residue of Platonism from philosophy of logic and language.
There is nothing intrinsic in a rule that guarantees it will be exercised as it was "meant" in the past.
If I say 2 + 2 = 4, one could ask what I meant by '+'. Well, I meant what I have always meant: group these 2 apples with these 2 apples and count them. "But what if you really meant by '+' that you should add the two terms EXCEPT in the case when one of the terms equals 150, in which case the correct application of the rule is to answer 0?"
But I DIDN'T mean THAT by the symbol '+'. I never have and I never will.
"How do you know you didn't mean that?"
Because I remember 'intending' the correct meaning when I used this symbol many times in the past.
The idea that a mental state sprinkles pixie dust on a rule to enable us to apply it correctly, infinitely into the future, is something that Wittgenstein found unacceptable.
What a great find. Thanks Caterina.
JEFF | March 17, 2003 6:26 AMWow, Jeff, the judge isn't the only one who knows his Wittgenstein.
Everything that you/Wittengenstein say makes perfect sense. But then how does he make the leap to a "way of grasping a rule that is not an interpretation?"
In any event, this anecdote gives me greater faith in our justice system.
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"... but his ruling makes me vocally proud to be an American.
Yeah, we haven't had any of those kind of rulings for awhile.
Is the JoD going to appeal I wonder?
Cheryl | March 17, 2003 7:48 PMI left the argument in mid-air, sorry.
Wittgenstein left us convinced that no rule can determine its own application, therefore there can be no binding rules. One could stop there, but not without being a little disingenuous (as Rumsfeld was) and without admitting a paradox: namely, the undeniable fact that we apply rules effortlessly every day. We build bridges using the rules of math written millenia ago, we read and perform musical scores written by composers centuries ago, applying the rules with confidence.
For Wittgenstein, since there are no truth conditions to establish fidelity to a rule, rules must be grounded somewhere else, namely in agreements between people, living a shared form of life. Rules cannot exist independently of community.
The big paradox is resolved only by dethroning rules from being sublime things (cloaked in the aura of certainty, truth) to mundane things (language and symbol manipulation embedded often fallibly in community life). Of course there is much more to it, but this is a decent synopsis of his position I think.
If I demonstrate with a few examples that I understand the rule y = 2x then you will conclude that I grasp the rule not because I satisfied truth conditions, but because I am acting like someone who understands the rule as you understand it. Some have said that Wittgenstein invoked 'intuition' as our mode of apprehending concordance with a rule.
Judge Mukasey took Rumsfeld et al to task for their cynical application of philosophical skepticism to circumvent the application of Padilla's civil rights. Basically he's telling them their half-baked argument has been considered and rejected by far greater minds than theirs.
I too thought it was a marvellous thing to see, and a good day for civil liberties.
JEFF | March 17, 2003 8:25 PMwell, I suppose I like to say something for the view labeled above as "superficial". Not as Wittgenstein exegesis - I think the evidence connecting the rule following considerations with the argument against private language in Wittgenstein's mind is at least as convincing as the evidence for the contrary interpretation - but as a matter of getting the philosophy right. Whatever the real problem of the rule following argument may be - an issue about normativity or intensionality or (to move forward a bit) the status of dispositional facts or subjunctive conditional claims - it seems sure on reflection to _not_ be the sort of thing that would have any deep or serious connection with the distinction between "language" or thought considered in terms of individuals and language as a social phenomenon. The notion that the move to the level of the social provides any sort of solution to the philosophically interesting aspects of the arguments about rule-following is just silly, and if Wittgenstein did believe there be such a connection, this would be quite an embarrassing gaff.
Of course, lots of very intelligent people disagree. But I do think I'm speaking for the majority position within serious work on rule-following today? Not that appeals to authority should settle anything in debates about philosophy. But we were speaking about Wittgenstein...
None of this should be understood as an attempt to re-mystify rule-following - although certain dispositional accounts (ala Lewis) may do just that - rather it's to point out that talk about communities doesn't really clarify anything here...why is agreements _between people_ that are required for the generation of normativity? The argument is generally based on some notion of the need for an external constraint on the correctness of individual usage, but while this can be important in many cases - including much of our own normativity, it's pretty plainly not essential...it's just as possible for structures within an individual to satisfy the relevant constraints as it is for a society to do so...
whatever. I don't know why I'm blathering on about this, sorry.
karl | March 17, 2003 8:37 PMWhat's not been said is that the citation of Wittgenstein was irrelevant to the decision. The judge didn't find the government's argument compelling, but they won on that particular point, though not in the end.
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2 + 2 = 4
Stick to the sign in ordinary language but analyse the sign if it is not in the ordinary idiom.
Let us say tijme is up but I would have appealed on good grounds: 2 = 2 = 5 .
Do you believe in God as an American?
Nigel K Woking
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"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"... but his ruling makes me vocally proud to be an American.
tim | March 17, 2003 6:17 AM