than jump on Skye’s thread I’m going to walk through this just to see what I com

http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2012/04/the-inexpressible.htmlRather than jump on Skye’s thread I’m going to walk through this just to see what I come up with. (Yes, some of us do not have preconceived notions we are blindly attached to. We make arguments to test our ideas. We find the outcomes no matter how unpleasant they are. Usually proving we’re wrong somehow in the process. ) 🙂

[autistic dialog on]

QUESTION: Are Some Ideas Inexpressible?

ANALYSIS: There are patterns we recognize but whose identity, and therefore causality is not yet understood by us. If that causality is not understood then further knowledge must be gained. Such things are not inexpressible they are simply not understood. Once that causality is understood identity is known. Causality and identity must be expressed in language. Language consists of analogies to experience. We can experience such concepts, therefore we can express it via language, however imprecise that language may be. The problem arises when we seek communication rather than expression. Communication requires a shared experience. Or at least rough enough analogies to shared experience that each step in that walk can be followed by the listener. If we are unable to walk someone through a line of thinking, feeling, and experiencing concepts that are either foreign or biologically incomprehensible to them, then we cannot communicate with them. Because communication requires we recognize those shared experiences. One cannot experience what one cannot comprehend by at least analogies to the senses, and abstractions require complex coordination of the senses. The blind man can never understand color. Some of us can never, no mater how hard we try, understand — which means experience — certain categories of knowledge. We are color blind — actually concept blind — to them. I do not think things are inexpressible. They may be incommunicable. As incommunicable they may be untestable. And as us untestable we cannot be sure whether our expression is sufficiently articulate to convey the experience, or whether the recipient is sufficiently possessed of the senses with which to perceive the content of our expressions. (or in most cases, the short term memory required.)

I do not think ideas are inexpressible if they are available to the senses of any individual. And I have found (adorno’s ramblings included) that the problem lies not in the idea, but in the insufficient labor that was put into articulating it as a series of experiences that the audience can follow — assuming they are able to. More often, (adorno included again) the incompetence at articulation is not a product of laziness, but of deception, erroneous perceptions of the physical world, erroneous concepts of human nature, and psychological avoidance. All of which are conducted abstractly out of complex analogies, because in that obscurity, they make it difficult to detect what our experience would convey to us as faulty. In adorno’s case, like many others, I suspect that the last case arises: it’s not that he doesn’t understand, not that he cannot articulate, not that we cannot perceive, but that we DISAGREE WITH HIS VALUE JUDGEMENTS if he rendered them in the language of common experience. A language which exists precisely because it is tested against the real world daily, and has been honed by trial and error over time to meet its current state.

Therefore the questions to raise whenever someone states that something is inexpressible are:

1) Do you understand its causal relations?

2) Can you articulate those causal relations in terms of shared experiences (even if those experiences are simply formulae)?

3) Do I lack those shared experiences? Am I capable of understanding those relations if you explain them? Or are you unable to articulate those relations? Which?

4) If I am capable of understanding those relations, is the reward sufficient that I want to invest in learning those experiences and relations instead of some other set of relations and experiences?

4) Do I agree that those causal relations correspond to reality if I can understand them?

5) Do I agree with the value judgements expressed by those causal relations if I can understand them?

In wittgenstein’s case, I kind of doubt that he was sure himself whether he understood. And I think later writers have stated as such. (That’s ok. It gave grad students something to do.) In Adorno’s case I think he was just creating a mess in order to advocate his ideas while avoiding unveiling the miscreant underlying his language. And he was a miscreant. (But then, maybe I’m wrong. I don’t understand Heidegger either. Because I lack empathy for his values and experience. And I do not see the value in obtaining the knowledge necessary to empathize with him, and therefore build a shared experience.) 🙂

Sorry if that was too long, but I just wanted to walk through it and see what I came up with. [Autistic dialog off]