2009-09-15
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Truth and abstraction
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Nash said: "...That is, in the world out there, there is only presence, not absence.
It is only, when language as a means of reference, or thought as a
means of representation, come, that absence can be expressed, or
conceived."
I once had a dog. Her name was Mutthilda. Mutthilda was very attached to my wife (the animal held me in distinctly lesser esteem). My wife left for a few weeks once to visit her family. For that entire time, Mutthilda was the very picture of dejection. She moped around, refused to eat, and was atypically lethargic. Clearly, Mutthilda was able to notice the absence of her Most Favored Person, even though she couldn't talk. (Her writing was pretty illegible, too.)
I have a lot of difficulties with your statement that I quoted above. What you call "the world out there" seems like a very uncanny place. I'm also confused by your saying that absence can only be "expressed" or "conceived" when language has "come". Well, it is true that one who doesn't have language can't say very much. But, like Mutthilda, one can express oneself without words. Both animals and pre-verbal children clearly notice the absence of loved ones--or the failure of a meal to appear on time. Then again, no dog can speak of either presence or absence, nor of walruses and sealing wax, etc. So if your point is that language gives us the special ability to speak (to ourselves or others) about "absence", then I must observe that the same holds true of every other topic. Being able to speak or understand language seems to have no special relation to "presence" or "absence".
You seem to be saying that negation is "an abstraction" that can only be expressed via language, but not found in "the world out there". Am I to assume that "presence" is not an abstraction, but something else? Concrete, perhaps? And presence can be understood (or whatever) without language? And surely you can't be saying that absences cannot occur in the "world out there". (Well, I have already said that I suspect you are speaking of a very quirky world, so perhaps you are saying that.) I find these distinctions completely opaque.
I am not sure whether I have ever been to "the world out there". Is it the kind of place one has to buy a ticket to enter? When I sit here at my computer, am I in "the world out there", or does my office not count? Do I have to go somewhere to be in "the world out there"? Well, wherever this world may be, you describe it in startling terms: it is full of "presence"...and nothing is ever absent. This reminds me a bit of Wittgenstein's opening sentence in the Tractatus (if one could manage to misunderstand it completely): "Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist". You seem to think that "what is the case" has a very different standing from that which is not, but I can't make out what the difference you are attempting to point out might be. Other than the obvious one, of course.
Suppose that Tom's wife calls me, and asks me to deliver a message to him in his office (she does this all the time, Tom hates phones, and refuses to answer them). So I go to Tom's office; sometimes he is there, and sometimes he is not. Do you truly want me to think that there is some important philosophical distinction between an occuppied office, and an unoccupied one? If so, I'm going to need a very great deal of explanation.
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