Carroll and nominalism

[ermete22]

Citation from “Through the Looking Glass”.

'Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called "HADDOCKS' EYES."'
'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.
'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is CALLED. The name really IS "THE AGED AGED MAN."'
'Then I ought to have said "That's what the SONG is called"?' Alice corrected herself.
'No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called "WAYS AND MEANS": but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!'
'Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
'I was coming to that,' the Knight said. 'The song really IS "A-SITTING ON A GATE": and the tune's my own invention.'

[johntufail]

I have hesitated before replying to this post, hoping for another response.

However this is a classic example of Carroll as a philosopher. Further, he has constructed this discussion on meaning and language in strict Platonic terms.

He is challenging the nominalists on their own ground yet in a way that is a gentle parody of 'Dialogues'

One of my favourite of all Carroll passages. It is simple, elegant and profound (which, of course, is what all mathematicians (and logicians strive for).

JT

JT

[ermete22]

When Carroll was still a young undergreduate student, wrote a small intervention which, as far as I remember, he had to read in front of some accademic body; he states there that Aristotes could not be considered a philosopher as he was interested in happiness rather than truth, and he clearly associate, as I understood his words, self-sacrifice with the search for truth. In my opinion this is not a serene approach to philosophy. This of course does not mean Carroll did not express a philosophy, rather, by building up it, he was fighting for finding some clear meaning of the term "truth". I honestly believe he considered platonism as one of the possible approaches, but he was not a platonist, and he was never serene when he worked out his beautiful pages which many people understand as intelligent logical jokes, while they expressed the urgency of his search for truth and most of all, his delusions of the result of such a never ending search. My personal opinion his that he methaforically suspected that the shadows at the bottom of the cavern where just shadows and nothing more. In Alice the girl is afraid to wake up the king, as she will disappear as well if he stops dreaming.
C.P.

[ermete22]

I do not think you can classify Carroll as a platonist; why sould Alice be afraid of waking up the small sleeping king, as she could disappear with together with his dream?
C.P

[johntufail]

Wouldn't it be supremely boring if we could pigeon-hole Carroll as 'Platonist' (or .Nominalist, or positivist or...) and leave at that!

Thankfully we can't. It's the measure of the man.

There is almost no doubt that Carroll was strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism (which is quite different from the original Platonic doctrines). The evidence, I personally consider overwhelming.

This said, however, saying even that, on this evidence, Carroll was a Neo-Platonist, would be akin to dismissing a perfect soufle' as merely a well cooked clutch of eggs!

As well as Carroll's interest in neo-Platonism, he also showed considerable interest in and empathy with the major strands of spiritualism, theosophy and 'occult philosophy. But of course, All these strands include - even embrace themes of Gnosticism and Hermeticism.

I agree with Carlos that Carroll's 'mission' was both to capture an acceptable definition of 'truth'. and finding a coherent way of expressing that definition in a language that he knew to be frail and fallible.

I have just been asked to write a review of a book on Carroll by Professor Sherry Ackerman ('Behind the Looking Glass'. In the preview blurb the publishers sent me is this:

'Ackerman exposes a Carroll who, having lost belief in the theological and mythological master plots of earlier eras, turned towards the imaginative foction of wonderlands rife with philosophical content in response to his instinctive hunger for cosmic cohererence and existential order'.

I would make the following amendment to this blurb. It should read. 'Cosmic Order and Existencial Coherence!'

Regards

JT

[ermete22]

John raises a point about Carroll's philosophy on which I personally spent a lot of time, as it seemed to me essential to understand at least some aspects of
Carroll's approach to reality. My synthesis (which can be wrong of course) is that Carroll correctly understood that "it is impossible to logically demonstrate
that spirits do not exist." first because, as we already discussed, he was perfectly aware of the traps where you can fall down when you use the word "exist": it is well possible we use the wrong semantic when we decide they do not exist. We are used now to judge spiritualists without taking into account the reasonability of the hope
that it was a correct theory rather than something which turned out it was apparently impossible to demonstrate experimentally. So, I think, the position of Carroll was totally reasonable and rationally (and emotionally) correct. I believe also that Carroll concluded correctly that it was probably impossible the experimentally demonstrate that spirits exist, which is the only possible correct conclusion of the practical failure of spiritualism. Which is completely different that concluding that spirits do not exist in some sense (which is a wrong logical conclusion). So was religion one of the many delusions of Carroll's search for truth? I doubt, as his
analytical capability would have not permitted such an obvious logical mistake.

Carlo

[ami]

ermete22 said:

Citation from “Through the Looking Glass”.

'Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called "HADDOCKS' EYES."'
'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.
'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is CALLED. The name really IS "THE AGED AGED MAN."'
'Then I ought to have said "That's what the SONG is called"?' Alice corrected herself.
'No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The SONG is called "WAYS AND MEANS": but that's only what it's CALLED, you know!'
'Well, what IS the song, then?' said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
'I was coming to that,' the Knight said. 'The song really IS "A-SITTING ON A GATE": and the tune's my own invention.'

Hi,
It seems to me that this Alice quotation is more directly concerned with the issue of language and metalanguage than with nominalism, though of course the two issues are related each other. There is a good discussion of it by Sophie Marret in:

MARRET, Sophie, "Metalanguage in Lewis Carroll", SubStance, vol. 22, n° 2/3, 1993, pp. 217-227.

She makes a comparison between that quotation and Carroll's well-known Achilles and the Tortoise paper. Her conclusion is that the two texts mean that metalanguage does not exist. I do not agree but the paper is still a good one!

[ami]

HI,
I would like to draw your attention to a not-well-known text of the philosopher of language Lady Victoria Welby where she criticized Carroll's nominalism as early as 1897 in her book: Grains of Sense.
Here is the citation related to Carroll (pages 10-12):

Quite as strange is the position taken by Lewis Carroll in his Symbolic Logic: “I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorized in attaching any meaning he likes to any word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of the book, ‘Let it be understood that by the word “black” I shall always mean “white”, and that by the word “white” I shall always mean “black”,’ I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I may think it”. A letter to him on this principle would of course seem merely a bad imitation of the missives in Wonderland: but perhaps if a member of the House were to announce before speaking that he intended to use the words liar, thief, scoundrel, and traitor in a complimentary sense, the Speaker might find some difficulty in meekly accepting his definitions. The Queen’s Speech again is the proverbial butt of the purist, sometimes perhaps even of the common-sense man; but at least we meekly accept and make the best of it, which we, or our foreign friends, would hardly do if advantage were taken of Lewis Carroll’s rule, and the Queen was made to announce “hostile measures” which had previously been defined as “friendly overtures” with reference to foreign powers.
It is amazing that a prince of humourists like Lewis Carroll should fail to see that such a practice, become common, would strike at the heart of humour itself: and should also overlook the tremendous part that associations called up by terms and phrases play in the effect of his Wonderland books. We might define till we are hoarse: the author might have begun ‘Alice’ with a chapter in large capitals, thus.
In this book:
Alice shall mean Punch.
Sitting ,, squeaking.
White Rabbit ,, Black Pig.
Cats ,, Pots.
Bats ,, Pans
The Dodo ,, The Coalscuttle
And so on all through the book. Or in the Symbolic Logic itself he might have begun by announcing that
Proposition shall mean Fallacy.
Syllogism ,, ,, Contradiction.
and so on. But it is to be feared that the result would be repudiated alike by young and old readers, with anything but meekness.
At this rate indeed, our motto will be, Every man his own Dictionary. And we shall have to revise our opinion of the famous game, “When I say hold fast, let go; When I say let go, hold fast”. Instead of expecting and enjoying the resulting chaos, and the desperate efforts of the players to untie the hard knots of association, we shall treat it as a valuable example of the legitimate prerogative of the definer.

[ermete22]

Well, if one takes this famous statement a la lettre, it would be somehow arbitrary, and raise a quite trivial possibility. I believe that it is intended to point out an essential fact of logic which is very often a source of error for beginners: in pure logics, as well as in the theory of formal system, the meaning of the words is (and has to be) totally ignored. If you do not strictly respect this principle, you will not be able to work out any logic. I agree that, as it is stated, it can create confusion, but such a confusion is, maybe, a point where you have to start to understand that logic is not about semantic.
You can however discover that a certain formal system can be interpreted; this means that you can create a correspondence between the term of the language and some set of objects and relations between them, a universe in more technical terms. This step invokes some semantics. This universe can be a part of the “real world” (even if it is impossible in logic to explain what “real world” means as it is a matter of semantic, or an abstract world as that of numbers, or whatever, nonsense world from the point of view of common sense. What is important that a rigid model connects the formal system and the objects and relations of your completely fantastic universe. There is no problem in imagining a universe where GRAVITY IS DIRECTED UPWARD on the earth surface and create a formal system F which represent it correctly. Semantically in this universe the direction of the gravity will be wrong, but if you consider the system from the inside everything will work correctly (in the logical sense). Everything will look strange but it will be totally logically correct. This is a move a move Carroll apply often in his works, with an appropriate choice which creates funny amusing situations. He makes no declarations and is up to you to understand the model, which sometimes has a more deep non technical meaning.
Carlo

[johntufail]

Hey Carlo, Ami,

This is a brilliant debate, but can we please remember to make it more accessible (I'm as guilty).

Lady Welby neither understood Carroll, nior understood the way language works.

Carroll's position on language, it seems to me, is this:

1. We live in a relative and contingent universe. The second law of thermodynamics holds sway (briefly, disorder will alway exceed order).

2. In such a universe, language (and this includes mathematics and music) must have the capacity to reflect however imperfectly the changing nature of the world and universe within we live.
3. Not only this, but language will always be imperfect. Both the noun and the adjective will always be semiologically defined. Example. An Indian, a Texan and a west country Englishman are strolling down a lane. They see in front of them a cow. The Indian, a Brahmin, sees an object of spiritual import. The Texan, sees beefsteaks, The Englishman sees milk butter and cheese. Who is 'right' The answer is no one is right and no one is wrong. Each sees the cow in terms of their own view of reality.

[johntufail]

Hi Carlo,

What you said about semantics and formal logic, is, of course true - to a point!

However, to me, at least, the reason that Carroll increasingly moved into the field of logic appears to be that unless at least some branch of mathematics has a semantic content then it not only cannot be accepted as a language that is 'truthful' other than within it's own and sterile (existentially) closed system, but, misunderstood (as a 'science' rather than a language, can be easily manipulated. There is also the problem that any premise must have a semantical content for it to be a premise - however speculatative that seman tic content is.

The best example I can think of is that economics is based on a premise that people will always react in a rational way in establishing their own self interest and that an agglomeration of responses by indvidual people constitutes The Market. Contemporary Economic theory has therefore created a law, that is outside physical laws, but nevertheless is accepted as equal invalidity as the law of gravity.

The problem is, of course, that about 80% of the human population does not respond to these laws. The 20 or so per cent that do both 'verify' the law of the market by their actions and further exclude the other 80% from relevance to the Law. Thus Classical economic theory becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. This is what, iIthink Carroll wished to avoid.

Regards

JT

[ermete22]

Hi John,
you are absolutely correct; as I noticed somwhere in this forum, the introduction to the first volume of his manual of logic, contains specific reference to the target you suggest. You are perfectly right.
Carlo

[ackerman]

Carroll’s story about Humpty Dumpty is suggestive of a satirization of Berkeley’s nominalism. Humpty Dumpty, from this perspective, subscribed to an extreme form of nominalism, according to which all that is common to a group of particulars is their being called by the same name. When Alice saw Humpty balanced on the top of the wall, she exclaimed, “And how exactly like an egg he is!” To this, Humpty replied that it was “very provoking to be called an egg.” Alice then assured him that he only resembled the common group of particulars called “eggs” by stating that, “I said you looked like an egg, Sir.” When Humpty turned the tables on Alice by asking her to tell him her name, she innocently replied, “My name is Alice, but—“. Humpty retorted that it was a “stupid name enough!” and asked her what it meant. Alice asked Humpty, “Must a name mean something?” and Humpty assured her that “of course it must.” As if Carroll wanted to be certain that his point was not missed, he had Humpty
continue to explain, “My name means the shape I am….With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.” Thus, Humpty, as a particular “egg” was defined by his resemblance to other “eggs” in being called by the same name. However, he could not determine how to reconcile, by resemblance, the particular “Alice” with the larger, universal group of “Alices.”

Humpty Dumpty, in fact, subscribed to an extreme form of
nominalism, according to which all that is common to a group of
particulars is their being called by the same name. Humpty, as a particular egg was defined by his resemblance to other eggs by the same name. However he could not determine how to reconcile, by resemblance, the particular Alice with the larger, universal group of Alices. This particular Carrollian satire is probably aimed at either Berkeley’s or Hobbes’ nominalism.

Sherry L. Ackerman
www.sherryackerman.com

[johntufail]

Hi Sherry,

Some years ago I read a paper in a philosophical Journal (the details are scraping in the back of my mind attempting to surface- butit's title included the pun 'curate's egg'). This argued strongly the case of the Humpty Dumpty chapter being a satire on Hobbesian nominalism. I remember thinking what a well argued case the writer made (It may have been W.W. Bartley?).

But Humpty Dumpty does not just have a nominalist approach to the way language and reality interface. He has very strong views on the nature of language itself - strongly making the case that language is the servant and must be told what to do. HumptyDumpty's a 'prioi argument on language is not unlike the theory of language that Bacon developed and which was taken to its extreme by the literalists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Mind you, I must admit I find the 'Bacon and Egg' analogy so Carrollian that perhaps the comic elegance of the image feeds my enthusiasm.

Regards

JT