Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar

by Thomas Cathcart

  {VII}

  Philosophy of Language

  When former president William Jefferson Clinton responded

  to a query, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is,”

  he was doing Language Philosophy. He may also have been

  doing other things.

  DIMITRI: I’m finally beginning to see through you, Tasso. This whole philosophy business is just playing games with words!

  TASSO: Exactly! Now we’re getting somewhere.

  DIMITRI: So you admit it! Philosophy is just semantics!

  TASSO: Just semantics? How else could you do philosophy—with grunts and giggles?

  ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY

  Ludwig Wittgenstein and his followers at Oxford University in the mid-twentieth century claimed that the classical philosophical questions—free will, the existence of God, and so forth—were puzzling only because they were posed in confused and confusing language. Their job as philosophers was to untangle linguistic knots, reframe questions, and do the next best thing to resolving the puzzles: make them go away.

  For example, Descartes, back in the seventeenth century, had declared that people are composed of a mind and a body—with the mind being like a ghost in a machine. Philosophers then puzzled for centuries over what sort of thing this ghost is. Wittgenstein’s Oxford disciple Gilbert Ryle said in effect, “Wrong question! It’s not any sort of thing, because it isn’t a thing at all. If we just look at the way we actually speak about so-called mental events, we can see that our words are really just a shorthand for describing behavior. Nothing whatever is lost if we simply throw away the word for the ‘place’ behavior supposedly comes from.” Consider it disposed of, Gilly.

  The young couple in the following story clearly needs to reframe their question:

  A young married couple moves into a new apartment and decides to repaper the dining room. They call on a neighbor who has a dining room the same size and ask, “How many rolls of wallpaper did you buy when you papered your dining room?”

  “Seven,” he says.

  So the couple buys seven rolls of expensive paper, and they start papering. When they get to the end of the fourth roll, the dining room is finished. Annoyed, they go back to the neighbor and say, “We followed your advice, but we ended up with three extra rolls!”

  “So,” he says, “that happened to you too.”

  Oops!

  As the poet Gertrude Stein lay on her deathbed, her partner, Alice B. Toklas, leaned over and whispered, “What is the answer, Gertrude?”

  Replied Stein, “What’s the question?”

  Wittgenstein blamed all the errors of Western philosophy on what he termed “being bewitched by language,” by which he meant that words can trick us into miscategorizing things. We are hoodwinked by the grammatical form of the sentences in which philosophical questions are posed. For example, in his magnum opus, Being and Time, Heidegger discussed “nothing” as if it designated some weird thing. Here’s a similar example of lingustic confusion:

  “Freddy, I hope you live to be a hundred, plus about three months.”

  “Thank you, Alex. But why the three months?”

  “I wouldn’t want you to die suddenly.”

  If you think Alex is bewitched by language, consider Garwood in the following story:

  Garwood goes to a psychiatrist, where he complains he can never get a girlfriend.

  “No wonder!” the shrink says. “You smell awful!”

  “You said it,” Garwood replies. “That’s because of my job—I work in the circus following the elephants around and cleaning up their droppings. No matter how much I wash, the stink sticks to me.”

  “So quit your job and get another one!” the psychiatrist says.

  “Are you crazy?” Garwood retorts. “And get out of show business?”

  Garwood has confused the denotation of “show business,” which, in his case, includes cleaning up after elephants, with the emotional connotation of “show business,” in which being under the spotlight is all that matters.

  According to the ordinary language philosophers, language has more than one purpose and is used differently in different contexts. Oxford philosopher John Austin pointed out that saying, “I promise,” is a whole different linguistic deal from saying, “I paint.” Saying, “I paint,” is not the same thing as painting, but saying, “I promise,” is the same thing as promising. Using language that is appropriate in one linguistic framework in a different linguistic framework is what causes philosophical confusions and pseudo puzzles, also known as the history of philosophy.

  The ordinary language philosophers thought that the centuries-old philosophical struggle over belief in God grew out of trying to frame the question as one of fact. They said religious language is a different language altogether. Some said it is an evaluative language like the kind film critics Ebert and Roeper use: “I believe in God” really only means “I believe certain values get two thumbs way up.” Others said religious language expresses emotions: “I believe in God” means, “When I ponder the universe, I get goosebumps!” Neither of these alternative languages results in the philosophical muddles you get by saying, “I believe in God.” Poof! Puzzle resolved! And 2,500 years of the philosophy of religion down the tubes.

  In the following story, Goldfinger and Fallaux are talking in two different linguistic contexts. It doesn’t help that they speak two different languages.

  Goldfinger is taking an ocean cruise. The first night he is seated for dinner with M. Fallaux, a Frenchman, who raises his glass to Goldfinger and says, “Bon appetit!”

  Goldfinger raises his glass and replies, “Goldfinger!”

  This goes on, meal after meal, for almost the entire voyage, but finally the ship’s purser can’t stand it any longer and explains to Goldfinger that “Bon appetit” is French for “Enjoy your meal.”

  Goldfinger is embarrassed and can’t wait until the next meal to redeem himself. Then, before Fallaux can say anything, Goldfinger raises his glass and says, “Bon appetit!”

  And Fallaux responds, “Goldfinger!”

  Stories, in which the characters have different agendas, provide goofy analogies to how differing linguistic frameworks muddle communication.

  Tommy goes to confession and tells the priest, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose woman.”

  “Is that you, Tommy?” says the priest.

  “Aye, it is, Father.”

  “Who is it you were with, Tommy?”

  “I’d rather not say, Father.”

  “Was it Bridget?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Was it Colleen?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Was it Megan?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Well, Tommy, say four Our Fathers and four Hail Marys.”

  When Tommy gets outside, his friend Pat asks him how it went.

  “Terrific,” says Tommy. “I got four Our Fathers, four Hail Marys, and three great leads!”

  In the following story, the priest is locked into his own understanding of the framework of the exchange he is having in the confessional and is unable to see the possibility of another.

  A man goes into the confession booth and tells the priest, “Father, I’m seventy-five years old and last night I made love to two twenty-year-old girls—at the same time.”

  The priest says, “When did you last go to confession?”

  The man says, “I’ve never been to confession, Father. I’m Jewish.”

  The priest says, “Then why are you telling me?”

  The man says, “I’m telling everybody!”

  A great number of jokes out there rest on double entendres, in which a phrase has a radically different significance when placed in a different linguistic framework. In fact, it is the frisson between the two frameworks that produces the chuckle.

  In a bar is a piano player with a monkey that goes around after each number collecting tips. While the pi
ano player is playing, the monkey jumps up on the bar, walks up to a customer, and squats over his drink, putting his testicles in the drink. The man is miffed, walks up to the piano player, and says, “Do you know your monkey dipped his balls in my martini?”

  The piano player says, “No, man, but hum a few bars, and I can probably pick it up.”

  Many riddles try to trap us into assuming we are inside one linguistic frame, when in fact we are inside a very different one.

  “Which of the following does not belong in this list: herpes, gonorrhea, or a condominium in Cleveland?”

  “The condo, obviously.”

  “Nope, gonorrhea. It’s the only one you can get rid of.”

  Ordinary language philosophy has been criticized as mere wordplay, but Wittgenstein insisted that confusion of linguistic frameworks can lead to fatal mistakes.

  Billingsley went to see his friend, Hatfield, who was dying in the hospital. As Billingsley stood by the bed, Hatfield’s frail condition grew worse, and he gestured frantically for something to write on. Billingsley handed him a pen and a piece of paper, and Hatfield used his last ounce of strength to scribble a note. No sooner had he finished the note than he died. Billingsley put the note in his pocket, unable in his grief to read it just then.

  A few days later as Billingsley was talking to Hatfield’s family at the wake, he realized that the note was in the pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He announced to the family, “Hat handed me a note just before he died. I haven’t read it yet, but knowing him, I’m sure there’s a word of inspiration for us all.” And he read aloud, “‘You’re standing on my oxygen tube!’”

  It’s ironic that a philosophical movement that depends on precise use of language should have developed among the British, of all people, as a number of jokes poke fun at the fact that they are often quite flummoxed by language.

  The rector of a parish in the Church of England is visited by one of his parishioners, who says, “Reverend, recently I heard an amusing limerick that you might like, but I must warn you, it’s a bit off-color.”

  “Oh, quite all right,” says the rector. “I don’t mind a bit of ribaldry now and then.”

  “Okay, here goes:

  There once was a young man named Skinner,

  Who had a young lady to dinner.

  They sat down to dine

  At a quarter to nine,

  And by 9:45, it was in her.

  “What was in her,” asks the rector. “The dinner?”

  “No, Reverend, it was Skinner. Skinner was in her.”

  “Oh, good grief, yes. Quite! Very amusing.”

  A few weeks later, the rector is visited by his bishop, and he says, “Bishop, one of my parishioners told me an amusing limerick that I would like very much to tell you, if you don’t mind its being a bit lewd.”

  “Please do,” says the bishop.

  “It goes like this,” says the rector:

  There once was a young man named Tupper,

  Who had a young lady to supper.

  First they had tea

  At a quarter to three,

  And by 3:45, it was up her.

  “Up her?” says the bishop. “What was up her? The supper?”

  “No, no, Bishop. Actually, it was a complete stranger named Skinner.”

  These are the people who gave us ordinary language philosophy?

  THE LINGUISTIC STATUS OF PROPER NAMES

  For the past fifty years or so philosophy has become increasingly technical, less concerned with broadly framed questions like free will or the existence of God, and more finely focused on questions of logical and linguistic clarity. We’re not naming names, but some of these philosophers seem to have gone off the deep end, like recent philosophers who have become intrigued by what sort of meaning proper names have. Bertrand Russell’s view was that names are really abbreviated descriptions. “Michael Jackson,” for example, is simply shorthand for “pink-skinned singer with unusual nose job.”

  What we have here is a distressing discussion between Wittgenstein and a more traditional philosopher, who is identifiable by her classic string of pearls. Note that the traditionalist clearly finds the expressions, “I love you” and “I love ya,” equivalent.

  Wittgenstein finds it necessary to correct her by explaining that the meaning of a word is determined by the rules for its use. Because the two expressions, “I love you” and “I love ya,” are used very differently in ordinary language, they have very different meanings and thus very different social implications.

  For the contemporary philosopher who goes by the name “Saul Kripke,” names of individuals have no descriptive definitions at all. They are “rigid designators,” (or in ordinary English, labels); their only connection to the persons or things they name is the historical chain of transmission through which they have been passed down.

  When he went into show business, Myron Feldstein changed his name to Frank Williamson. To celebrate landing a starring role on Broadway, he gave a huge party in his penthouse condo. He invited his mother to the party, but she never arrived.

  The next morning he found his mother sitting in the lobby. He asked her what she was doing there, and why she hadn’t come to the party.

  “I couldn’t find your apartment,” she said.

  “Well, why didn’t you ask the doorman?”

  “Believe me, I thought of that. But to tell you the truth, I forgot your name.”

  Frank, or as his mother would have it, Myron, has interrupted the historical chain of transmission of “Myron.”

  QUIZ

  Whose theory of names, Russell’s or Kripke’s, is at play in the following joke?

  A young man was shipwrecked alone on a desert island. One day, he saw a swimmer coming toward him. It was none other than Halle Berry! In a matter of hours, the two became passionate lovers. Weeks of fiery lovemaking followed. Then one day the man said to Halle, “Will you do me a special favor?”

  “Anything,” the beautiful woman replied.

  “Great. Would you cut your hair very short and let me call you Ted?”

  “Ooh, that sounds kind of weird,” said Halle.

  “Just do it—please, please, please?”

  “Well, okay,” said Halle.

  That evening, as they strolled hand-in-hand along the shore, the young man turned to her and said, “Ted, you’ll never believe who I’m shagging!”

  THE PHILOSOPHY OF FUZZINESS

  One contemporary, technical, linguistic concept goes by the deceptively banal name of “vagueness.” “Vagueness” is a term used by philosophers called “fuzzy logicians” (honest to God) to describe the quality of “having a truth-value of one to ten” rather than being simply and absolutely true or false. “That man is bald,” for example, might be used to refer to anyone from Michael Jordan to Matt Lauer. From Matt’s point of view, the term is way too vague.

  Some philosophers have seen vagueness as a pervasive defect of natural languages—say, Swedish or Swahili—and have advocated the construction of an artificial language, like mathematics, to eliminate vagueness.

  In the following story, the guard is trying to mix a vague natural language and a precise mathematical language with predictable results:

  Some tourists at the Museum of Natural History are marveling at the dinosaur bones. One of them asks the guard, “Can you tell me how old these bones are?”

  The guard replies, “They’re three million, four years and six months old.”

  “That’s an awfully exact number,” says the tourist. “How do you know their age so precisely?”

  The guard answers, “Well, the dinosaur bones were three million years old when I started working here, and that was four and a half years ago.”

  William James described a spectrum of ways of thinking, ranging from “tender-minded” to “tough-minded.” More tender-minded philosophers maintain that vague, natural languages have an advantage over mathematics: They give us more wiggle room.

  An eight
y-year-old woman bursts into the men’s day-room at the retirement home. She holds her clenched fist in the air and announces, “Anyone who can guess what I have in my hand can have sex with me tonight!”

  An old man in the back shouts, “An elephant?”

  The woman thinks for a moment and says, “Close enough!”

  Tough-minded philosophers might grant this woman some wiggle room, but they would point to instances where precision is important and the vagueness of natural languages could be disastrous. Perhaps an artificial language could have averted the following tragedy:

  A 911 dispatcher receives a panicky call from a hunter. “I’ve just come across a bloodstained body in the woods! It’s a man, and I think he’s dead! What should I do?”

  The dispatcher calmly replies, “It’s going to be all right, sir. Just follow my instructions. The first thing is to put the phone down and make sure he’s dead.”

  There’s a silence on the phone, followed by the sound of a shot. The man’s voice returns, “Okay. Now what do I do?”

  VAGUENESS RULES!

  True story:

  Guy Goma was sitting in a reception room at the BBC, waiting for a job interview for the position of data support person, when a television producer entered the room and asked, “Are you Guy Kewney?”

  Mr. Goma, who is from the Congo and is a newcomer to the English language, replied, “Yes.”

  The producer whisked him into a studio, where the host of a live TV news program was expecting to interview a business expert on the trademark dispute between Apple Computer and the Apple Corps recording company. “Were you surprised by the verdict today?” asked the interviewer.

  After a moment of sheer panic, Mr. Goma decided to give it his best shot. “I am very surprised to see this verdict, because I was not expecting that,” he answered.

  “A big surprise,” said his host.