Philosophy

by Sharon Kaye

  Suppose you’re observing two men building a house. ‘Builder A’ calls out ‘Slab!’ ‘Builder B’ goes to the pile of slabs, picks one up and brings it to Builder A. Then Builder A calls out ‘Beam!’, and Builder B brings him a beam. Builder A goes on calling out words – slab, block, pillar and beam. In each case, Builder B retrieves the correct object.

  At first glance, we might think their communication works as follows: Builder has a thought in his mind. He uses a word to point to the object to which his thought corresponds. When Builder B hears the word, it causes a thought in his mind which corresponds to the same object.

  The problem with this explanation is that it doesn’t explain why Builder B brings the object to Builder A.

  Suppose Builder B is actually a very young girl and Builder A, her father, has to train her for the job. How does he do it? He demonstrates: ‘When I say “slab”, come to this pile, pick up one of these, and bring it to me over here,’ he instructs. ‘When I say “beam”, come to this pile, pick up one of these, and bring it to me over here.’

  Notice that the girl can copy his demonstration without knowing that ‘beam’ is a name for beams, and so on for the other four words. All she needs to know is that, after her father makes a certain sound, she is supposed to bring him a certain object. In fact, we can easily imagine the father instructing his daughter to bring him a slab when he says ‘beam’ or when he blows one of four different whistles.

  What does this building game tell us?

  Meaning as use

  It tells us that words get their meaning, not by connecting minds to objects but by being used in activities.

  The reason it seems as though words connect minds to objects is because one of the first games we learn to play is the naming game, where an adult points to objects and tells the child the name for it. From this activity we generate the mistaken assumption that the word ‘apple’ refers to apples.

  This assumption is mistaken because it requires us to posit a thought in the mind, an object in the world, and some sort of invisible connection between them. It’s much simpler to assert instead that, by copying the examples we see, we learn to associate saying ‘apple’ with pointing to apples.

  In the game of Monopoly, we learn to associate passing ‘Go’ with collecting $200 (or £200). The game wouldn’t work without this rule. Yet 200 Monopoly dollars (or pounds) don’t mean anything other than what they allow you to accomplish in the game.

  Wittgenstein uses the analogy of games again and again to understand how language works. He goes so far as to assert that language is a game. Games make sense without referring to any reality outside of themselves. Likewise, language works without reference.

  Family resemblance

  Another significant feature about games is that they are very difficult to define. Usually, defining a term requires identifying what all of its instances have in common. But there isn’t anything all games have in common.

  The moment you think of a quality that all games have in common, you can always find exceptions. And yet we all easily recognize a game when we see it. How can this be? Wittgenstein addressed this question in his philosophical investigations.

  Consider for example the proceedings that we call ‘games’. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? – Don't say: ‘There must be something common, or they would not be called “games”’ – but look and see whether there is anything common to all. – For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!’

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 66, trans. G.E.M.

  Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958)

  Although games don’t share a definition, they do share a family resemblance – a series of similarities that establishes a relationship. Biological families provide the primary example of this concept. Consider the Smith family:

  • The mother has red hair and a big nose.

  • The father has blond hair and a crooked grin.

  • The son has red hair and freckles.

  • The daughter has big nose and a crooked grin.

  There is no one quality that all the Smiths share. Yet each shares a quality with at least one of the other members.

  Wittgenstein asserts that language is the same way. It consists of a series of interrelated activities, which Wittgenstein calls ‘forms of life’, such as:

  • giving and obeying orders

  • describing or measuring things

  • reporting on an event

  • speculating about an event.

  While each of these activities shares features with others, there is no one feature common to them all.

  Behaviourism

  Wittgenstein set out to solve the mystery of how words enable us to connect our thoughts to the world. In the end, he came to the conclusion that they don’t. Language is a loosely related set of behaviours that a machine can learn just as well as a human being.

  Wittgenstein takes a further, shocking step, however, when he asserts that, because language does not require minds, there is no reason to believe in them.

  But can't I imagine that the people around me are automata, lack consciousness, even though they behave in the same way as usual? – If I imagine it now – alone in my room – I see people with fixed looks (as in a trance) going about their business – the idea is perhaps a little uncanny. But just try to keep hold of this idea in the midst of your ordinary intercourse with others, in the street, say! Say to yourself, for example: ‘The children over there are mere automata; all their liveliness is mere automatism.’ And you will either find these words becoming quite meaningless; or you will produce in yourself some kind of uncanny feeling, or something of the sort. Seeing a living human being as an automaton is analogous to seeing one figure as a limiting case or variant of another; the cross-pieces of a window as a swastika, for example.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 66, trans. G.E.M.

  Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958)

  Wittgenstein presents a thought experiment to motivate this step. Suppose everyone has a small box with a beetle in it. No one is allowed to look in anyone else’s box. Instead, we talk about our beetles. Each seems to be a little different from every other. But how do I know you’re describing your beetle accurately? Come to think of it, how do I know you have a beetle at all? Does anyone really have a beetle? Perhaps we are all just playing a game.

  Likewise, we talk about the thoughts inside our heads, but we never get to see what’s really inside. For example, your friend says she believes in God. But this doesn’t mean anything unless it makes a difference to what she does – going to church, praying and so forth. If she does nothing different from what she would do if she didn’t believe, then her belief may as well not exist.

  Suppose you claim you believe in God. Does it make a difference to your behaviour? If not, it’s an empty claim. If so, what is the belief other than the behaviour itself?

  If we don’t need the mind to explain what we do, we should eliminate it. Wittgenstein goes so far as to assert that, for all we know, we are all androids (which he calls ‘automata’)

  We find the swastika creepy only because of its association: we know the history of how it has been used. Likewise, we find the idea of children being androids creepy only because we associate androids with ghosts, aliens and other scary monsters. Without this association, the idea that we are all androids shouldn’t be creepy at all.

  The view that human life consists in externally observable activities that can be fully understood without reference to any internal, mental states is known as behaviourism. Though Wittgenstein was reluctant to call himself a behaviourist, his view is behaviourist, whether he liked it or not.

  He famously asserts: ‘One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the w
ord “I”.’

  Perhaps Wittgenstein is right that language creates the illusion of an inner person. On the other hand, without ‘I’ you couldn’t say a lot of things, like ‘I love you’, which many people – philosophers or not – aren’t willing to do without.

  Spotlight

  Two behaviourists have sex. One turns to the other and says, ‘That was good for you: how was it for me?’

  Key ideas

  Behaviourism: Human life consists of externally observable activities that can be fully understood without reference to any internal subjective states

  Conjunction: The logical operation that joins two propositions

  Family resemblance: A series of similarities that establishes a relationship among a group of individuals

  Formal logic: The systematic study of the relationship between propositions

  Negation: The logical operation that denies a proposition

  Picture theory of meaning: Wittgenstein’s theory that words correspond to the world in the same way pictures do

  Reference: The way words connect to the world

  Truth table: A method for assigning truth value to complex propositions from their atomic parts

  Fact-check

  1 Why does the early Wittgenstein reject metaphysics?

  a You can’t make a picture of it

  b You can’t make a game of it

  c It’s useless for architecture

  d It implies we are androids

  2 You would use a truth table if you wanted to determine which of the following about a proposition?

  a Whether it is true

  b What all its possible truth values are

  c How it refers to the world

  d Why it is true or false

  3 What is Wittgenstein’s building game supposed to prove?

  a That children can follow instructions as well as adults

  b That you can’t tell whether or not human beings are androids

  c That the meaning of words is a function of how they are used

  d That words correspond to the world in the same way pictures do

  4 What did Bertrand Russell’s epic failure concern?

  a Marriage

  b Proving 1 + 1 = 2

  c The Nobel Prize in Literature

  d The picture theory of meaning

  5 Which of the following is not true of language games, according to Wittgenstein?

  a They share family resemblances

  b They can be defined

  c They refer to nothing outside themselves

  d Adults play them just as often as children

  6 Which of the following would a behaviourist say?

  a I’m a different person on the inside

  b You can never know how other people really feel

  c Inner happiness is more important than success

  d I am what I do

  7 Why does Wittgenstein think ‘I’ is misleading?

  a Because it suggests someone is ‘home’

  b Because we are all interrelated

  c Because self-knowledge is impossible

  d Because it has no logical operation

  8 What is the goal of philosophy according to Wittgenstein?

  a Clarification

  b Construction

  c Criticism

  d Creativity

  9 Why doesn’t Wittgenstein believe in minds?

  a Because they aren’t logical

  b Because language doesn’t require them

  c Because he found them creepy

  d Because children are often wiser than adults

  10 What is ‘Wittgenstein’s beetle’?

  a A game

  b A picture

  c A machine

  d The mind

  Dig deeper

  P.M.S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies (Oxford University Press, 2001)

  R.J. Fogelin, Wittgenstein, 2nd edn (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987)

  John Slater, Bertrand Russell (Thoemmes Press, 1994)

  13

  Sartre and existence

  ‘Hell is other people.’

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  In this chapter you will learn:

  • about the problem of human existence

  • the significance of nothingness

  • how bad faith interferes with free will, in Sartre’s view

  • the meaning of existentialism

  • how to achieve authenticity, according to Sartre

  • problems with candidates for a fundamental project

  • about de Beauvoir’s pioneering contribution to feminism.

  Thought experiment: Mars or Venus?

  You’re sitting in a large office at the Academy of Intergalactic Exploration. Across a desk full of computer screens, your commander beams at you.

  ‘Good news,’ he says, ‘everything is ready for your internship. We’re sending you to a small planet called Earth. Interesting creatures called humans live there. The only thing left is to decide whether you want us to morph you into a male or a female.

  ‘What do you mean?’ you ask.

  ‘Humans come in two types.’

  ‘OK,’ you shrug. ‘Whichever – it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, but it does,’ he insists. ‘For starters, males and females have different genitalia. But there are so many ramifications.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He raises one finger. ‘Males are bigger and stronger on average, which is why male and female athletes compete separately.’

  ‘The males would always tend to win.’

  ‘Right.’ He adds a second finger. ‘Males also make more money. The statistics vary, but if you go female you’re likely to earn about 81 per cent of what you would as a male, and you’re not nearly as likely to make it to an executive position.’

  ‘Well, I guess I should go male then…’

  ‘But the males die younger – by a good five years, in most places.’ He ticks off a third and fourth finger. ‘And they can’t have babies.’

  ‘Babies?’

  ‘Yes, human offspring come from the females – right out of their bellies, if you can believe it! – and are highly dependent on them for a long time.’

  ‘Hmm. That sounds like a lot of work.’

  ‘Sure, but there are emotional benefits… Human babies are very cute and cuddly and fun to play with. At any rate, the hormones required for childbearing seem to make females much more sensitive.’

  ‘Being sensitive is liable to make life more difficult, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps. But females also tend to be more religious, which helps keep them cheerful.’

  ‘Religion could be interesting…’

  ‘Yes, but bear in mind that the religions are run by the males…’

  ‘So the males are usually the executives and the religious authorities…’

  ‘And the government officials.’

  ‘Are they smarter?’

  ‘Apparently not. It’s hard to measure. Test scores run about the same. But it’s only within the last 100 years or so that the males have started allowing the females to pursue higher education.’

  ‘Sounds like the females are second-class citizens.’

  Your commander gazes out the window. ‘In ancient times, humans made up two gods, Mars and Venus, who symbolized the difference between the males and the females. Mars is a great warrior and Venus is a great beauty. Which would you rather be?’

  You bite your lip. ‘I may need a while to think about this.’

  Your commander shakes his head. ‘We need to morph you now. Don’t worry – you can get a sex change there if you come to feel you’ve made the wrong choice.’

  The choice and the given

  Have you ever thought about how different your life would be if you were the opposite sex? If you had been given the choice, would you have chosen the sex you are? If it were easy to switch to the opposite sex, would you? Would you be interested in trying it temporar
ily, just to see what it was like?

  Perhaps not, because most people see gender as central to their identity. Take a moment to picture yourself as the opposite sex…

  Would you still be you?

  Just one little y chromosome – which causes testicle development – makes for the difference. Perhaps, one day, switching will be easy. Perhaps it will become a popular thing to do.

  Of those who would switch, do you think more of them would be male switching to female or female switching to male? Why?

  Of course, even if you did switch, you would still remember your original gender – the one you grew up with. The ‘given’ that shaped your life.

  Gender is not the only ‘given’ in your life. You never had the opportunity to choose many things about your identity – the language you speak, your family, the environment around you. And yet, as in the case of gender, you often have much more choice than you think. You can learn a new language, adopt a new family, or move to the other side of the world…

  There is a small, unstable space right between the choice and the given. This is where authentic human existence begins, according to the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80). The most popular philosopher of the twentieth century, Sartre urges us to find this space to escape the problem of human existence.

  The problem of human existence

  After being taken prisoner of war by the Nazis, and reading Heidegger (whom we met in Chapter 11) during his confinement, Sartre became concerned about the problem of human existence. He felt that the entire history of philosophy had failed to show that there was anything special or important about being human.

  In fact, insofar as we see the history of philosophy culminating in Wittgenstein, we’re liable to walk away from it utterly depressed. Perhaps there isn’t anything special or important about being human. Perhaps we are all organic androids.