Language as a Tool System

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Language as a Tool System

• Mark H. Bickhard
• mark_at_bickhard.name
• http//www.bickhard.ws/

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Language as a Tool System

• Abstract
• It is common knowledge that language can be used
  as a tool to accomplish tasks.
• But utterances are taken to be constituted as
  encodings of mental contents.
• I argue that this encoding view is in error, and
  that language is directly constituted as a tool
  system.
• In particular, utterances are tools for engaging
  the common understandings that constitute social
  realities.

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Doing Things with Words

• J.L. Austin was an early investigator of actions
  performed with words, e.g., assertions, commands,
  promises, etc.
• Searle is one contemporary who has followed in
  this path
• Others also focused on actions using words, such
  as the later Wittgensteins likening of language
  to a tool box

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Actions with Encodings

• All of these approaches have in common the
  assumption that the actions are performed with
  encoded propositions
• These propositions represent states of affairs
  that are asserted to exist, commanded to be
  brought into existence, promised, and so on.
• The encoded representations are used in the
  service of the actions

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Problems with Encodings

• But such encoding assumptions encounter serious
  problems
• The problem is not that encodings do not exist
  they clearly do
• But they cannot serve primary epistemic functions

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Encoded Representations

• Consider how actual encodings work
• Example Morse code
• ... encodes S
• Example Neutrino counts encode properties of
  fusion processes in the sun
• Encodings change the form of representation
• This can be useful
• can be sent over telegraph wires while s
  cannot
• Neutrinos can be counted on earth, while fusion
  in the sun is not accessible

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Encodings are Derivative

• Encodings must borrow their representational
  content
• They are derivative representations, not primary
• Some agent must know represent both ends of
  the encoding relationship, and the relationship
  itself.

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Encodings Cannot be the Basic Form of Epistemic
Access

• Consequence encodings cannot cross epistemic
  boundaries they cannot be the primary form of
  representation for perception or for language
• Not mind to world in perception
• Nor world to mind in language
• Because both ends must already be represented,
  the epistemic boundary would have to be already
  crossed in order for the encoding to exist
• There is no way in which such non-derivative
  encodings could be defined or learned

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Circularities

• Circularities result from assuming that encodings
  can serve as their own ground, can provide their
  own representational content
• Incoherence
• Piagets copy argument
• Classical radical skeptical argument

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Encodingism

• Nevertheless, the assumption that representation
  is encoding is common
• Encodingism The assumption that (all)
  representation is encoding
• Representation, including mental representation,
  is presumed to be constituted in some kind of
  encoding correspondence
• causal, nomological, informational, conventional

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Fatal Problems

• Such encodingism assumptions, however, encounter
  myriads of fatal problems
• Circularities
• Too many correspondences
• Possibility of error
• Possibility of system detectable error
• Possibility of emergence
• Innatism is not a solution

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What Could Language Be If Not Encodings?

• Apperception
• Other side of visually perceived object
• Animal in forest on basis of sound
• Modifies representation of environment
• Adds, subtracts, transforms
• Apperceptive maintenance of representation of
  environment around you, including extended
  environment
• Anticipations of what could happen, what would be
  possible

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Apperceptions of Utterances

• Utterances induce apperceptions of
  representations
• Apperceptions add, subtract, transform
• Utterances operate on, transform, representations
• Utterances interact
• With what?

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The Locus of Language

• What is the locus of language interactions?
• Obvious candidate other minds
• Partially correct, but this overlooks the
  sociality of language
• What about, e.g., the difference between
  arranging for someone to see that X is the case
  and telling them that X is the case?
• Both have mind as object interactive locus
  but the first is not language
• In the second case, the result is a
  transformation of the common understanding
  between the utterer and the audience both end up
  knowing that X was asserted, and knowing that
  both know that X was asserted, etc.

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Situation Conventions

• Commonalities of understanding which I call
  situation conventions, conventions about the
  current social situation constitute social
  realities
• E.g, lecture situation, birthday party, formal
  meeting, etc.

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Utterances as Operators

• Utterances transform situation conventions, in
  multiple ways, at multiple scales
• Macro e.g., call a meeting to order
• Micro e.g., change the manner in which a pronoun
  will be resolved in a conversation

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What About Minds?

• Situation conventions are constituted in
  relations of commonality and consistency among
  the representations of social participants
• So, transforming situation conventions does
  transform minds, but indirectly
• Lifting a coffee cup is interacting with the
  atoms in the cup, but indirectly

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Productivity

• Signals can transform social understandings
• Language provides a means for constructing
  unbounded ranges of operators on social
  understandings
• Language is productive

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Language as a Tool System

• Language is a conventional recursive tool kit for
  constructing conventional tools (utterances) for
  interacting with situation conventions

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Context Dependence

• One strong consequence Language is inherently
  context dependent
• Utterances transform the context in which they
  are uttered, and therefore are sensitive to that
  context.
• Operators are sensitive to their arguments
• Unless they are akin to constant functions

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Ubiquitous Context Dependencies

• Not just for pronouns, indexicals, etc.
• Even proper names
• This is obvious, but has tended to be overlooked
  in favor of the model of language as encoded
  Names
• Recursive context dependencies
• Partee The man who gave his paycheck to his
  wife was wiser than the man who gave it to his
  mistress.
• Not co-referential

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What Happened to the Propositions?

• Utterances are interactions with representational
  systems
• They are not representational themselves
• Representations are generated by utterances, not
  encoded by them
• There are no encoded propositions wrapped up in
  utterances

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Many Further Consequences

• An interactive model of language has many further
  consequences
• Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics cannot be defined
  in standard ways
• These do not constitute a theory neutral division
  of the field of study
• Functional constraints on syntax generates UG
• Provides an approach to creative language
• Utterances do not encode transformations either
• Apperception can yield problem solving tasks

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Conclusion

• Utterances as actions using encoded propositions
  suffers serious logical problems
• Language as a tool system for interacting with
  social realities avoids these problems
• And induces multiple changes in
  conceptualizations of language and its properties