[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Next, consider the fact that you and I might follow estab-lished rules for using words, but I still might not understandyou if I can t see what you re getting at, if you don t conveyyour point of view.When the Hatter explains the workings ofhis watch, which tells the day of the month, and doesn t tellwhat o clock it is, Alice feels dreadfully puzzled.The Hatter sremark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it wascertainly English. 14In light of such cases, Davidson concludes, what s requiredfor communication, and all that s required, is not that we bothuse terms according to shared rules but that I attribute to yourwords the meanings that you intend them to bear.Davidsonwants to replace the institutional view of language use whichemphasizes subjection and constraint with one that registersthe creativity and flexibility of language use, the need for imagi-nation, enterprise, and innovation in order to achieve, via con-versation, a meeting of minds.Let s call it The Invention View.Since the Alice novels continually thwart our linguisticexpectations and demonstrate the limitations of those expecta-tions, we might take them to advance the invention view.It scertainly captured in the Duchess s injunction Take care of15the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves, whichsuggests that what matters for communication is not the spe-cific words uttered, but their being understood in the intendedI S THERE SUCH A THI NG AS A LANGUAGE? 111way.The Alice novels also mock the utility of lessons, of thesort one finds in a French lesson-book, when trying to con-verse with a mouse.16 And we re surely not to take seriously theRed Queen s guidance on how Alice should speak including, Open your mouth a little wider when you speak whose resultis that For some minutes Alice stood without speaking. 17Moreover, the shift from rules to intentions to communicate isechoed in the White King s complaint: My dear! I really mustget a thinner pencil.I can t manage this one a bit; it writes allmanner of things that I don t intend. 18Nonetheless, while the Alice novels certainly encourageus not to exaggerate the role rules play in communication,they also exhibit a sympathetic attitude to the institutionalview. If [cats] would only purr for yes, and mew for no, orany rule of that sort, says Alice after escaping the linguisticmaelstrom of the looking glass, so that one could keep upa conversation. 19 In a moment, we ll consider just where theAlice novels diverge from Davidson, but first let s take a lookat another area of convergence. What s the Use of a Book withoutPictures or Conversation? 20 Success in communicating, Davidson insists, is what we needto understand before we ask about the nature of meaning orof language. 21 The Alice novels agree.In Wonderland s open-ing paragraph, Alice wonders what use is a book withoutconversation. 22 And we re told that Alice was very fond ofpretending to be two people when alone, suggesting thattalking or giving very good advice to oneself is somehowparasitic upon talking to another.23 Accordingly, when stuckin the Rabbit s house, Alice went on, taking first one side andthe other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether,at least until she heard a voice outside. 24 Unsurprisingly,Alice feels quite pleased to have got into a conversation112 D ANI EL WHITI NGwhen she meets the Duchess,25 and is equally pleased tohave somebody to talk to when the Cheshire Cat appears.26Elsewhere, Alice has conversations with a mouse in a river oftears, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, and the Mad Hatter, 27 andpretends to converse with a kitten and a house.28Behind this shared emphasis on communication is hos-tility to what I ll call The Solipsist View, according to whichthe nature of language can be understood by focusing on theindividual speaker in isolation from her physical and socialenvironment.29 (A solipsist believes that only she exists.)Davidson s certainly no fan of the solipsist view, insistingas he does on the essential social element in linguisticbehaviour. 30 We would not have a language, he claims, if there were not others who understood us and whom weunderstood; and such mutual understanding requires a worldshared both causally and conceptually
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]