Abstract
Here in Chapter 6 there is first a summing up of meaning theories and of their implications for a conception of normative language. After a discussion o a paradigmatic empiricist approach to language, the one defended by Bertrand Russell, special attention is devoted to the “speech acts” theory. This is seen as propedeutic to the question of justification of moral judgments to be dealt in the following chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
See e.g., P. Ricoeur, L’éthique et les conflits de devoirs: le tragique de l’action, in Etica e vita quotidiana, Bologna 1989, p. 5, and J. Habermas, Faktizität und Geltung. Beiträge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 127.
- 2.
This is not so, as we know, for Wittgenstein, or at least for the “early” Wittgenstein: “Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts” (L. Wittgenstein, A Lecture on Ethics, in The Philosophical Review, vol. 74, 1965, p. 7).
- 3.
Cf. H. L. A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, Oxford 1963, p. 20.
- 4.
Q. Skinner, Liberty Before Liberalism, Cambridge 1998, p. 105.
- 5.
See supra, Chapter 3.
- 6.
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, p. 35 (para. 4.021).
- 7.
Ibid., p. 49 (para. 4.2).
- 8.
B. Russell, Introduction, in L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, London 1961, p. xi.
- 9.
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, p. 90 (para. 5.631).
- 10.
Ibid., p. 22 (para. 3.203).
- 11.
J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by R. Woolhouse, London 2004, p. 364 (III.3.ii).
- 12.
I. Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, ed. by R. Brandt, Hamburg 2000, p. 93.
- 13.
K. Adjukjewicz, O znaczeniu wyrazen, Lwow 1931, quoted by K. Opalek, Il problema del significato directivo, in Diritto e analisi del linguaggio, ed. by U. Scarpelli, Milano 1976, p. 156.
- 14.
Ch. Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior, New York, NY 1946, p. 10. See also Ch. Morris, Signs About Signs About Signs, in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 9, 1948, p. 115.
- 15.
A. Ross, Directives and Norms, London 1968, p. 76.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
R. Carnap, Replies and Systematic Expositions, in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, ed. by P. Schilpp, La Salle, IL 1963, p. 882.
- 18.
W. V. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, in Id., From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed., New York, NY 1961, p. 21.
- 19.
J. Conrad, Under Western Eyes, ed. by J. Hawthorn, Oxford 1983, p. 3.
- 20.
E. Cassirer, An Essay on Man, New Haven, CT 1944, p. 134.
- 21.
A. Ross, Directives and Norms, p. 77.
- 22.
This has been stressed by William P. Alston: “The attempt to give behavioural analyses of meaning is still in an early stage, and it would be premature to deliver a final verdict. Nevertheless, one must recognize that at present they exhibit some glaring deficiencies. First of all, they are saddled with the assumption that every meaningful linguistic unit is a ‘sign’ of some discernable extra-linguistic thing, aspect or state of affairs” (W. P. Alston, Meaning, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by P. Edwards, vol. 5, London 1967, p. 236).
- 23.
In this connection, see K. R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1, The Spell of Plato, 5th ed., London 1973, p. 57. The incompatibility of a non-cognitivist metaethics and a “realistic” philosophy of language has been stressed by D. Zolo, La democrazia difficile, Roma 1989, p. 23.
- 24.
This is also the model adopted by one of the astutest Italian philosophers of law, Giovanni Tarello: “We call the ‘meaning’ of an expression of language the communication that expression makes in relation to each of the three functions of language” (G. Tarello, Diritto, enuciati, usi. Studi di teoria e metateoria del diritto, Bologna 1974, p. 140).
- 25.
M. Jori, Comunicazione (semiotica), in Gli strumenti del sapere contemporaneo, vol. 2, I concetti, Torino 1985, p. 145.
- 26.
Ibid.
- 27.
In this connection see U. Scarpelli, Contributo alla semantica del linguaggio normativo, 2nd ed., ed. by A. Pintore, Milano 1984, pp. 85ff.
- 28.
K. R. Popper, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie, Tübingen 1979, p. 276.
- 29.
M. Bunge, Treatise on Basic Philosophy, vol. 2, Semantics II: Interpretation and Truth, Dordrecht 1974, pp. 73–74.
- 30.
See also, J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien, in Id., Vorstudien und Ergänzungen zur Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 158, where he affirms that “die Verständlichkeit einer Äusserung mit deren Wahrheit nichts zu tun hat”.
- 31.
See K. R. Popper, The Demarcation between Science and Metaphysics, in The Philosophy of Rudolph Carnap, ed. by P. A. Schlipp, La Salle, IL, 1963, p. 192.
- 32.
R. Plant, Modern Political Thought, Oxford 1991, p. 18. This is however what paradoxically Wittgenstein in a sense demands of us in his Tractatus: see para. 6.54 (cf. H. Tetens, Wittgensteins “Tractatus”. Ein Kommentar, Stuttgart 2009, p. 9).
- 33.
The theory of use is anticipated by Baruch Spinoza: “Verba ex solo usu certam habent significationem (Tractatus theologico-politicus, in Spinoza, Opera, ed. by C. Gebhardt, 2nd ed., vol. 3, Heidelberg 1972, p. 160).
- 34.
This is the position defended by, for instance, Baker and Hacker. See G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein, Rules, Grammar and Necessity, Oxford 1986. Cf. also G. P. Baker and P. M. S. Hacker, Scepticism, Rules, Language, Oxford 1984, p. 20.
- 35.
Cf. J. L. Austin, The Meaning of a Word, in Id., Philosophical Papers, Oxford 1961, pp. 23ff.
- 36.
See J. Habermas, Wahrheitstheorien, p. 158
- 37.
Cf. A. Flew, Thinking about Social Thinking. The Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Oxford 1985, pp. 63ff.
- 38.
As Searle says, “meaning is more than a matter of intention, it is also a matter of convention” (J. R. Searle, What is a Speech Act?, in The Philosophy of Language, ed. by J. R. Searle, Oxford, 1971, p. 46) Here Anthony Flew’s remarks are also relevant when he notes “how fallacious it is to argue that, if something is the product or result of conscious human agency, then it must always be in practice possible radically to redesign and reshape that product or that result in such a way that it shall better accommodate the wishes of the person concerned” (A. Flew, Thinking about Social Thinking, p. 67).
- 39.
Cf. R. Alexy Theorie des juristischen Argumentation. Die Theorie des rationalen Diskurses als Theorie der juristischen Begründung, 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main 1983, pp. 71ff .
- 40.
B. Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, London 1985, p. 27.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Ibid., p. 28.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
B. Russell, Human Knowledge. Its Scope and Limits, London 1948, pp. 519–520.
- 45.
B. Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, p. 28.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 171.
- 47.
Ibid., p. 189.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Ibid., p. 175.
- 50.
See for example M. Schlick, Meaning and Verification, in Philosophical Review, vol. 45, 1936, and R. Carnap, Testability and Meaning, in Philosophy of Science, vols. 3 and 4, 1936 and 1937.
- 51.
B. Russell, An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, p. 308.
- 52.
Ibid., p. 308.
- 53.
Ibid., pp. 314–315.
- 54.
Ibid., pp. 186–187.
- 55.
J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words, 2nd ed., ed. by J. O. Urmson and M. Sbisà, Oxford 1982, p. 5.
- 56.
See ibid., p. 14.
- 57.
See ibid., pp. 98–101, and p. 109.
- 58.
Ibid., p. 98.
- 59.
Ibid., p. 147.
- 60.
See ibid., p. 100.
- 61.
Ibid., p. 145.
- 62.
Ibid., p. 134.
- 63.
See ibid., p. 101.
- 64.
See ibid., p. 138.
- 65.
On the relevance on the theory of meaning in relation to metaethical questions see e.g., E. Tugendhat, Probleme der Ethik, Stuttgart 1984, p. 17.
- 66.
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, p. 112 (§ 6.42)
- 67.
“In der Ethik werden keine Aussagen gemacht, sondern Anweisungen gegeben”, writes Reichenbach (H. Reichenbach, Der Aufstieg der wissenschaftlichen Philosophie, Braunschweig 1968, p. 314).
- 68.
See A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic, Harmondsworth 1982, p. 137.
- 69.
“To invoke justice,” writes Ross, “is the same thing as banging on the table: an emotional expression” (A. Ross, On Law and Justice, Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles, CA 1958, p. 274).
- 70.
Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, ed. by F. Waismann, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 118.
- 71.
See M. Schlick, Fragen der Ethik, ed. by R. Heselmann, Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 67: “Was als die lezten Namen oder die höchsten Werte gilt, muß der menschlichen Natur und dem Leben im Widerspruch stehen, kann nicht die im Leben zugrunde liegenden Werte für schlecht oder falsch erklären. Seine Normen können nicht zu den vom Leben letztlich anerkannten fordernd oder befehlend in einen wirklichen Gegensatz treten”.
- 72.
“Ein Soll hat also nur Sinn, wenn hinter dem Soll etwas steht, das ihm nachdruck gibt –eine Macht, die straft und belohnt. Ein Soll an sich ist unsinnig”(Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, p. 118). For a similar, centered around sanction notion of morality, cf. E. Tugendhat, Fragen der Ethik, pp. 72ff. Contra K. Baier, The Moral Point of View, Abridged ed., New York 1965, pp. viii–ix.
- 73.
Ch. Morris, Signs, Language and Behavior, p. 139.
- 74.
Ibid., pp. 139–140.
- 75.
Ibid., p. 92.
- 76.
B. Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics, London 1954, pp. 125–126.
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La Torre, M. (2010). Meaning and Value Judgements. In: Law as Institution. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 90. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6607-8_6
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