Language Games
So I was reading MacIntyre on incommensurability and untranslatability, summed up:
"Where two large-scale systems of thought and practice are in radical disagreement...there is and can be no independent standard or measure by appeal to which their rival claims can adjucated, since each has internal to itself its own fundamental standard of judgment. Such systems are incommensurable, and the terms in and by means of which judgment is delivered in each are so specific and idiosyncratic to each that they cannot be translated into the terms of the other without gross distortion."
One need look no further than the U.S.'s politics in the Mid-East to see the ramifications if this were even potentially the case. Even with a likelihood of incommensurability being total, and no possibility of debate succesfully crossing the systems in any meaningful way, we must continue as if this were possible. We must act on the potential that there is something constructive to be gained, because if there is not, it is simply meaningless to go on. MacIntyre believes there is:
"An admission of significant incommensurability and untranslatability in the relations between two opposed systems of thought and practice can be a prologue not only to rational debate, but to that kind of debate from which one party can emerge as undoubtedly rationally superior, if only because exposure to such debate may reveal that one of the contending standpoints fails in its own terms and by its own standards."
I propose that there is one more difficulty in this, and that is that there is no standard way of judging when this situation has actually occured. It's an unprovable claim; while in fact one standpoint may fail in its own terms, this will not be transparent to the other standpoint. One may continue to play the game, as it were, long after the other side has conceded, or even began a different game. It strikes me that this situation, that of language games in general, is much like the game Battleship. You each sit with your pieces arranged on a grid on your side, and a blank grid representing the other player with the same grid system as your own. Once they have placed their pieces, you begin trading shots until you develop an idea of where their pieces are. Assuming their grid is ordered the same as yours, your representation of their grid should match their actual grid, and the game proceeds as normal until a clear winner is established.
But imagine that their grid is labelled differently from yours, and in fact may contain letters and numbers not even on your grid. With only the feedback of hit/miss, play may actually proceed as normal for quite a while, and with different pieces in play, one player may even come to the conclusion that they have won. But what we are left with is two very different grids, and no intrinsic way of telling from either side that something is amiss. Play may progress such that is is inavoidable to conclude that their grid is different, as you start to throw certain hits that come back as misses, but this is never guaranteed (especially given the enourmous grid that we all posses), and you have no way of telling what their grid looks like without recreating it's exact order. One side may concede "loss" given their grid, but this is not obvious given the projected grid on the other side. And it is strange to conclude that the other side somehow brought about this "loss" because it is rationally superior, in fact both of their grids will not make much sense at all. But it was the very act of participating in the debate, and taking what may only be considered 'random' hits, that allowed one side to accept the inadequacy of their system of pieces, and refine or reject it altogether.
"Where two large-scale systems of thought and practice are in radical disagreement...there is and can be no independent standard or measure by appeal to which their rival claims can adjucated, since each has internal to itself its own fundamental standard of judgment. Such systems are incommensurable, and the terms in and by means of which judgment is delivered in each are so specific and idiosyncratic to each that they cannot be translated into the terms of the other without gross distortion."
One need look no further than the U.S.'s politics in the Mid-East to see the ramifications if this were even potentially the case. Even with a likelihood of incommensurability being total, and no possibility of debate succesfully crossing the systems in any meaningful way, we must continue as if this were possible. We must act on the potential that there is something constructive to be gained, because if there is not, it is simply meaningless to go on. MacIntyre believes there is:
"An admission of significant incommensurability and untranslatability in the relations between two opposed systems of thought and practice can be a prologue not only to rational debate, but to that kind of debate from which one party can emerge as undoubtedly rationally superior, if only because exposure to such debate may reveal that one of the contending standpoints fails in its own terms and by its own standards."
I propose that there is one more difficulty in this, and that is that there is no standard way of judging when this situation has actually occured. It's an unprovable claim; while in fact one standpoint may fail in its own terms, this will not be transparent to the other standpoint. One may continue to play the game, as it were, long after the other side has conceded, or even began a different game. It strikes me that this situation, that of language games in general, is much like the game Battleship. You each sit with your pieces arranged on a grid on your side, and a blank grid representing the other player with the same grid system as your own. Once they have placed their pieces, you begin trading shots until you develop an idea of where their pieces are. Assuming their grid is ordered the same as yours, your representation of their grid should match their actual grid, and the game proceeds as normal until a clear winner is established.
But imagine that their grid is labelled differently from yours, and in fact may contain letters and numbers not even on your grid. With only the feedback of hit/miss, play may actually proceed as normal for quite a while, and with different pieces in play, one player may even come to the conclusion that they have won. But what we are left with is two very different grids, and no intrinsic way of telling from either side that something is amiss. Play may progress such that is is inavoidable to conclude that their grid is different, as you start to throw certain hits that come back as misses, but this is never guaranteed (especially given the enourmous grid that we all posses), and you have no way of telling what their grid looks like without recreating it's exact order. One side may concede "loss" given their grid, but this is not obvious given the projected grid on the other side. And it is strange to conclude that the other side somehow brought about this "loss" because it is rationally superior, in fact both of their grids will not make much sense at all. But it was the very act of participating in the debate, and taking what may only be considered 'random' hits, that allowed one side to accept the inadequacy of their system of pieces, and refine or reject it altogether.
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