aristotle's attention to language

I frequently get a lot out of essay introductions that academics write at the beginning of collections or selections of so-and-so's thought. I'm currently reviewing some Aristotle, and that led me to Renford Bambrough, about whom I know nothing about and refuse on principle to google. He is the commentator for the selection pulled together by Signet Classic. (Of course by 'classic,' Signet means 'just like the kind you used to buy when you were younger: really cheap, using bad paper, and guaranteed to fall apart quickly.') He has a general introduction and work-specific intros. In the one on Aristotle's Metaphysics Bambrough argues about the importance of figuring out the relation between thinking, language, and the world. This is the subject of Aristotle's work, and Bambrough is trying to convince his readers that the issue is a central one in Western philosophy, and not only there.

Bambrough writes:

For an understanding of Aristotle's metaphysical doctrine, it is necessary to consider further the nature and influence of his presupposition in favor of the subject-predicate form of proposition, and to say more about the relations between logic, language, and the world.

Aristotle needs to establish the right kind of approach to these gross features of the world in order to proceed with his philo-scientific investigations. He can't afford to be 'loose' when it comes to language, the way normal people can in everyday life.

Whether we see metaphysics in its traditional light, as an attempt to portray the most general features of the world and its structure, or in more recent terms, as a search for the nature of the ultimate justifications of our statements about the world, it is clear that, in either case, some conception of the relation beteween language and the world will be necessary for the metaphysician.

Interesting the way Bambrough provides a double description for metaphysics: the more transcendent kind versus the more 'epistemologic' and linguistic kind of metaphysics.

Philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein have always inveighed against the treacherous fascination of language and have pleaded with us to look at things as they are and not at mere words. But as the work of even the greatest philosophers amply illustrates, this advice is easier to give than to take. Language is the necessary medium of philosophical as of all other communication. Great perplexity inevitably lies in store for us when we try to make the clear distinctions between language, thought, and the world that we must make if we are to see any of them as it is in itself, unaffected by its contact with others.

If we were to follow the example of Aristotle and the seeming advice of Bambrough, the first philosophic task would be to reflect on language. This would have to be done first in order to clear, as much as possible, the misunderstandings and errors that will insinuate themselves into our writing and reading if we are unreflective about language and employ it naively. The medium we employ for our thoughts is the first thing we should interrogate.

Which is what Bambrough does, using an interesting metaphor.

It is clearly necessary . . . to distinguish between those features of a map that correspond with features of the land that is mapped by it and those that are features conferred on the map by the mode of its projection and do not correspond simply and straightforwardly with any features of the land that is being mapped.

So on the map we get a fairly good picture of what Sweden, Italy, and Africa look like and what is connected to what. And the image provided by the map does conform pretty well to what is actually there.

Thus, we may come to think that the correspondence between the map and the earth's surface is closer than it is, and this will lead us into error.

Errors that Bambrough goes on to specify. But since we know that the map is an approximation of some kind, we will be careful about taking it 'literally.'

If we know and understand the projection, we do not have any serious trouble with a map; and since the projection was deliberately devised, it is quite easy to come to understand and to use it. But the modes of projection by which our language portrays the world are not set out for us in any elementary textbook; and although they are human products, they were not deliberately devised by human beings. It is therefore a matter of the most stubborn difficulty to know and to explain at what points and in what respects our language does and does not directly represent the world that it is used to describe. The struggle with this difficulty is a very large part of the task of metaphysics. The group of treatises that we know as Aristotle's Metaphysics is primarily concerned with this central problem.

excerpted from "Introduction", copyright 1963, by Renford Bambrough in the Signet Philosophy of Aristotle (New York: Penguin, 2003), 3-4.

You know, he's right. We should teach language theory in elementary school. If they want, it could be part of English class. A little self-reflection on how language potentially skews the quality and angle of our observations and reflections would be good for everyone. We could assign some Derrida. But also a few other classic thinkers on language as well as more popular treatments of this issue. Properly excerpted, Derrida and these other thinkers could make perfectly comprehensible points to young people that would the basis for useful discussions. Also, no doubt about it, media classes. I think we want people to be a little reflective about the avalanches of ever more sophisticated digital content incessantly washing over them. Apparently, for instance, some of the more recent video football games are about ten times more realistic and addictive than their more washed-out stick figure ancestors. Not to mention online games. We're talking many hundreds of hours of slavish devotion per month.

Getting back to Derrida though, if thinking through critically about how language works relative to thought and reality is good enough for Aristotle, and important to Professor Bambrough, then why in the world do so many people get it up their nose about Derrida? All right, I admit it: I've recently been reading some Derrida. Grammatology. I don't blame anyone but myself that I haven't read it before but I'd have to say that I have never been warned away from a book so much and so passionately, with so many rolling eyes, in my life. That's my fault for following popular opinion and not checking things out for myself. Now that I'm finally reading it I find it to be nowhere near as mythically opaque nor as spectacularly outrageous as I expected.

Let's put things in perspective. There are all sorts of heavy hitters in philosophy that one must devote serious reading to for there to be any hope of following and then assessing them. And so if I'm going to jump on Derrida for stylistic reasons, then I have to compare apples to apples. We're not going to be able to compare Derrida to, say, Jimmy Breslin. If we compare him to difficulty and obscurity levels found in widely recognized philosophic works, we will not find that Derrida is any where near the worst case. When I have confronted moments of incomprehension in my reading of Derrida, I do exactly what I've done for other authors, such as Plato and Hegel. First, 'psychologically' I *push* in the direction of understanding rather than dismissing them. I think there's a danger there: the relief of finally understanding what someone says should not be illegitimately transferred over to agreeing with what is said. It's a lot of work to crack Hegel, or sometimes Adorno; everyone has their own list of difficult thinkers. But if you do crack it, the pleasure of using a code language that only a restricted group understands tempts one away. That needs to be guarded against. But keeping that in mind I do 'push' away from dismissing and towards understanding. The second move is obvious: I consult secondary sources. Derrida doesn't provide much 'context' for Part I: Writing before the letter in Grammatology. He jumps into his topic and someone, like me, insufficiently informed on the theoretical background, can end up disoriented. I use secondary sources to help me figure out what's going on. This is no more than what I would do with another author. In the sections that follow the more difficult Part I, the difficulty level of Grammatology declines dramatically -- and the same is true with others, like Kant, who require repeated exposure and study before the 'way' of their thinking can be followed. The more you read them, the more you get them.

If we can get past the actual obsfucation about Derrida's supposed obscurity, if we can agree that opposition to Derrida cannot be reasonably applied there, then we can talk about what he says. But that is easier said than done. Too many are invested in the argument that has them dismissing Derrida, lightening as it does the reading load. (And Derrida is certainly not the only thinker who is effectively boycotted through this kind of academic 'social sanction', as Mill would put it.) The result is a kind of intellectual stalemate on campus, a kind of permanent cease fire, a don't ask don't tell policy that has colleagues acting collegially enough as long as certain issues aren't broached.