From Descartes to Hume, the so-called ‘way of ideas,’ was devoted to the notion that clarity is a desirable and potential property or quality of ideas. I don’t mean to suggest that after this way was abandoned clarity disappeared wholly as a philosophical ideal; the subsequent German age embraced, at least briefly,
"One can imagine that philosophical prose written subsequent the habitual (and successful) analysis is more lucid than the kind of prose one writes if one aims at disclosing the essential throwing-ness of dasein. But it's not clear if the connection between clarity as the effect of analysis and presentational clarity is anything but contingent."
I'm somewhat taken aback these two sentences are strung together in the midst of an essay whose focus is clarity.
I'll take a stab-
'Statements derived from linguistic analysis convey intended meaning more precisely than mytho-poetic musings about metaphysical chimera, but this is merely aspirational rather than a certainty.'
Much depends upon who it is performing the linguistic analysis and derives statements therefrom. Method, as an abstraction, shows its worth in application and execution. When execution is lacking, it is difficult to decide if it is the method or the actor that bears indictment. Perhaps both. The method falters, if insufficent to the task assigned, and the actor falters, if inartfully making use of the method. We might also indict those apt to deify method (the method, any method). Then again just as much depends upon the situated perspective of the interpreter, the audience (invited, intended, or otherwise). Should adherence to a school determine the degree of fidelity attained between message sent and received? Oh, but it does. (Don't get me started on the vagaries of translation, or the use of neologisms, or the use of jargon to signal guild membership, because who doesn't want to sit with the cool kids, right?)
The notions concocted by Homo Sapiens bear greater resemblance to Conger eels in a holding tank than diamond facets cut with lasers, if you catch my drift.
Clarification TLP-style is showing how a sentence in some natural language can be unpacked in a sentence of the sparse formal language for which TLP provides a semantics.
Clarification PI-style (and Oxonian Ordinary Language School style) is making the rules explicit that govern the use of the phrase to be clarified in ordinary language.
Clarification Carnap-style is explicating or erecting a linguistic framework with semantic postulates.
"One can imagine that philosophical prose written subsequent the habitual (and successful) analysis is more lucid than the kind of prose one writes if one aims at disclosing the essential throwing-ness of dasein. But it's not clear if the connection between clarity as the effect of analysis and presentational clarity is anything but contingent."
I'm somewhat taken aback these two sentences are strung together in the midst of an essay whose focus is clarity.
I'll take a stab-
'Statements derived from linguistic analysis convey intended meaning more precisely than mytho-poetic musings about metaphysical chimera, but this is merely aspirational rather than a certainty.'
Much depends upon who it is performing the linguistic analysis and derives statements therefrom. Method, as an abstraction, shows its worth in application and execution. When execution is lacking, it is difficult to decide if it is the method or the actor that bears indictment. Perhaps both. The method falters, if insufficent to the task assigned, and the actor falters, if inartfully making use of the method. We might also indict those apt to deify method (the method, any method). Then again just as much depends upon the situated perspective of the interpreter, the audience (invited, intended, or otherwise). Should adherence to a school determine the degree of fidelity attained between message sent and received? Oh, but it does. (Don't get me started on the vagaries of translation, or the use of neologisms, or the use of jargon to signal guild membership, because who doesn't want to sit with the cool kids, right?)
The notions concocted by Homo Sapiens bear greater resemblance to Conger eels in a holding tank than diamond facets cut with lasers, if you catch my drift.
On the subject of clarity:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The Red Wheelbarrow/ William Carlos Williams
Clarification TLP-style is showing how a sentence in some natural language can be unpacked in a sentence of the sparse formal language for which TLP provides a semantics.
Clarification PI-style (and Oxonian Ordinary Language School style) is making the rules explicit that govern the use of the phrase to be clarified in ordinary language.
Clarification Carnap-style is explicating or erecting a linguistic framework with semantic postulates.