On the ineffability of semantics
Based on a distinction drawn by Jean van Heijenoort in order to explain some phenomena in the history of symbolic logic, Jaakko Hintikka differentiated two main philosophical conceptions of language: language as universal medium and language as calculus. Moreover, he found in these conceptions an ultimate presupposition of 20th century philosophy - not only of the analytical tradiction but also of the continental and hermeneutical one. Husserl, Frege, Wittgenstein, Tarski, Quine, Heidegger and Gadamer among others presupposed one conception or the other.
According to the universalistic point of view, there is only one language, the language we use, and we cannot escape of it. Their semantic relations are presupposed in it and we cannot change them. So we cannot step outside language and examine its relations to the world. According to the contrary view of language as calculus, we are not prisoners of the language, so that we can get outside from it and analyse its own semantics; we can also vary its interpretation. In this sense, language is like an uninterpreted language. Now, Hintikka argues that the universalistic view leads to the impossibility of semantics: meaning and truth cannot be completely grasped in the language as a whole (ordinary or formalized); the meanings of the expressions of our and only language cannot be defined in that language itself. He refers to this situation as the ineffability og semantics.
In this talk, I intend to provide an account of Hintikka's thesis, comparing it with the original distinction by van Heijenoort, and I will discuss it in relation to ordinary and formalized languages. Finally, I will try to show some ways out from this situation. In fact, we can accept the idea of a unlimited and inexhaustible language, which cannot be fully analyzed. However, we can take fragments of this language, and their semantics can be studied by means of the rest of the language, so that it can be reinterpreted. In this cas, the language would be transformed in a calculus in Hintikka's sense.
Based on a distinction drawn by Jean van Heijenoort in order to explain some phenomena in the history of symbolic logic, Jaakko Hintikka differentiated two main philosophical conceptions of language: language as universal medium and language as calculus. Moreover, he found in these conceptions an ultimate presupposition of 20th century philosophy - not only of the analytical tradiction but also of the continental and hermeneutical one. Husserl, Frege, Wittgenstein, Tarski, Quine, Heidegger and Gadamer among others presupposed one conception or the other.According to the universalistic point of view, there is only one language, the language we use, and we cannot escape of it. Their semantic relations are presupposed in it and we cannot change them. So we cannot step outside language and examine its relations to the world. According to the contrary view of language as calculus, we are not prisoners of the language, so that we can get outside from it and analyse its own semantics; we can also vary its interpretation. In this sense, language is like an uninterpreted language. Now, Hintikka argues that the universalistic view leads to the impossibility of semantics: meaning and truth cannot be completely grasped in the language as a whole (ordinary or formalized); the meanings of the expressions of our and only language cannot be defined in that language itself. He refers to this situation as the ineffability og semantics.
In this talk, I intend to provide an account of Hintikka's thesis, comparing it with the original distinction by van Heijenoort, and I will discuss it in relation to ordinary and formalized languages. Finally, I will try to show some ways out from this situation. In fact, we can accept the idea of a unlimited and inexhaustible language, which cannot be fully analyzed. However, we can take fragments of this language, and their semantics can be studied by means of the rest of the language, so that it can be reinterpreted. In this cas, the language would be transformed in a calculus in Hintikka's sense.
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