h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, I was forgetting that the purpose of language is not to formulat thought but to communicate it.

...but onto thought without language...Obviously! It's almost blindingly obvious but is also backed up with oodles and oodles of experimental evidence. We can almost think of language as an abstraction of thought.

(Which, if we think about the relationship between 'thought' and 'reality' brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to...Berkeley!)

But the Wittgenstein quote starts off with the idea that the lion *has* language. A lion's 'mind' is probably pretty different from a human's, and language depicts the mind in some way, so we couldn't understand the lion because there is such a huge difference between the minds/languages. Human languages have a certain basic core in common since all speakers of human languages have human minds -> people can learn to understand each other's languages. The lion on the other hand hand is on some completely different plain from us.

As I understand it the early Wittgenstein says there are places we can and must go, where language cannot go; the entire field of ethics, for instance, makes no sense in language, its truths cannot be said, but only shown.

The late Wittgenstein was more flexible in what he accepted as meaningful uses of language; but he gives this telling example in the Philosophical Investigations:



78. Compare *knowing* and *saying*:
how many metres high Mont Blanc is--
how the word "game is used--
how a clarinet sounds.

If you are surprised that one can know something and not be able to sayit, you are perhaps thinking of a case like the first. Certainly not of one like the third.



The thing about not being able to understand a lion if he spoke, refers to the way our language is learnt in a framework of behaviour, human cooperation. Lion behaviour is (subtly? but visibly) different, so his presuppositions would not match ours. (Thinks: perhaps that is what put me off the image of Aslan in the Narnia books.)

Berkeley (by the way) made a shrewd distiction between language used to convey ideas and language used to affect others' behaviour.

I also had trouble with the religious image of "The Good Shepherd". He may indeed lay his life down for his flock, but what fate has he in mind for them in the end?

So the Narnia books are really full or religious references? I didn't notice a thing when I read them as a kid.

And I haven't even converted.

Don't tell me you read Wittgenstein before you read Narnia?

Ooh, that would be impressively prodigy-like, wouldn't it?

Sadly, no. Never read Wittgenstein.

Jaysus! The Narnia books are blatant propaganda from a particularly odious theologian from start to finish!

The lamb beyond the end of the world in Voyage of The Dawn Treader.

The Last Battle: Good that is done in the name of Tash is really done in the name of Aslan. Evil that is done in the name of Aslan is really done in the name of Tash.

And...In Prince Caspian and A Horse and His Boy...which religion do you think the desert-dwelling, scimitar-wielding Calormenes are meant to represent?

And don't get me started on Lewis's misogyny! The evil, corrupting queen in The Magician's Nephew and The Lian The Witch and the Wardrobe. And in The Last Battle....Susan is 'No longer a friend of Narnia'....because she's reached puberty!!!

But I haven't yet figured out who Puddleglum is meant to represent...


But I digress. Where were we?

Susan didn't stop being a friend of Narnia because she reached puberty. Lucy also reached puberty and continued to be a friend. Susan stopped being a friend because of the choices she made when she reached puberty.

And the Calormenes were portrayed as civilised people, skilled in the art of storytelling, although ruled by a corrupt ruler. There were good ones and bad ones.

Incidentally, it was only about a month ago that I started reading up on Istanbul and discovered that Tashbaan was Istanbul.

I agree with you, though, that Lewis really laid it on with a trowel.

The thing I disliked most in the Narnia books was the fact that Eustace's obnoxious behaviour was entirely attributed to the fact that his parents were vegans and that he went to a comprehensive school.

I read Wittgenstein first, as a student, and the Narnia books second, as a father. The heavy hand of Anglican theology comes straight through, and I felt the same blanket of dullness descend that the sound of a church organ modulating vaguely had surrounded me with weekly as a church-going child.

Another thing that offended me about the Narnia stories was the Dufflepuds. Their turn of phrase and quirky take on things set off my Leprechaun-sensors, and once alerted the comparison was repeatedly reinforced. The Dufflepuds are recusant ignoramuses who don't realise when they have been liberated. A bit like the Tibetans.

The one part of Narnia that I loved as the Wood between the Worlds. I would have stayed there.

Aslan is Turkish (and also Persian and Arabic?) for Lion.

Raki with water (it turns cloudy, like ouzo) is 'Aslan sütlüsu' - Lion's milk.

But...I still don't understand why a lion's language would be incomprehensible. It may have different motivations. It may want to talk about different things. It may represent various concepts which are not in the forefront of our thinking (I imagine, for example, that much of its vocabulary would be devoted to smell) But, if it's language is an abstract representation of our common reality...surely it would have equivalent properties?

Think "Where is this guy coming from?"

Actually, I think that lions, being cats, don't have a great sense of smell. They do have a great sense of eyesight, much better than ours for spotting small things that move. But's that's only an aside.

If lions are like other cats, then there would be a large vocabulary to do with self-image and pride (and I don't mean the collective term for lions, I mean good old-fashioned vainglory).

Gnomon's point: So...is English - a language which makes much use of visual metaphor - incomprehensible to a blind English speaker? We have to distinguish between surface features (vocabulary - but also semantics) and 'deep structure'.

Recumbentman: You weren't your usual apposite self in your last posting. Please expand. (This is a polite way of saying 'Wha??!!')

My comment on lions and the humans talking about different things has suddenly reminded me of a line by (?) Mayakovsky "talking to the taxman about poetry" (borrowed by Billy Bragg for an album title)

Eek. I thought that was my most perfectly pointy post yet.

When a lion speaks to you you cannot understand him because his background is one you can have no sympathy with. "Where is this guy coming from?" is an expression of exasperation used when someone is making no sense.

Ho hum.

Vogon poetry: a good example.