display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Traditional semantic theory leaves out two contributions to the determination of reference - the contribution of society and the contribution of the real world; a better semantic theory must encompass both. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.161) | |
A reaction: I strongly agree that there is a social aspect to reference-fixing, but I am much more dubious about the world 'determining' anything. The whole of his Twin Earth point could be mopped up by a social account, with 'experts' as the key idea. |
114 | Rhetoric can produce conviction, but not educate people about right and wrong [Plato] |
Full Idea: Rhetoric is an agent of the kind of persuasion which is designed to produce conviction, but not to educate people about right and wrong. | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 455a) | |
A reaction: Surely there must be good rhetoric (or at least it is an open question)? |
116 | Rhetoric is irrational about its means and its ends [Plato] |
Full Idea: Rhetoric is a knack, because it lacks rational understanding of its object or what it dispenses (and can't explain the reason anything happens). | |
From: Plato (Gorgias [c.387 BCE], 465a) | |
A reaction: If there are cunning people who have the wrong sort of intelligence for morality, there must be cunning users of rhetoric who know exactly what they are doing. |
5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
Full Idea: There are tools like a hammer used by one person, and there are tools like a steamship which require cooperative activity; words have been thought of too much on the model of the first sort of tool. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Meaning and Reference [1973], p.156) | |
A reaction: This clear thought strikes me as the most fruitful and sensible consequence of Wittgenstein's later ideas (as opposed to the relativistic 'language game' ideas). I am unconvinced that a private language is logically impossible, but it would be feeble. |