Longer Views (56 page)

“Alfred,” I said, laying my pencil across my pad and leaning back in the leather wingchair, “I know you really
are
trying to save me pages of semiological hair-splitting, but you are also standing in my way—interfering, if you will, with the modular context I have been trying to establish between the rain and my drawing pad. Could you be a pal and see if you can get us some coffee . . .?”

As English summers will, that one soon ended.

As happens, a year later an Italian summer replaced it. I was spending a sunny week in a villa outside Florence. The news came from my hostess, one morning over coffee in the garden, that we were to be joined shortly by—of all people! I had thought he was somewhere in Nepal; indeed, I
hadn't
thought of him for six months! And who, sure enough, should come striding across the grass ten minutes later, in rather worn-out sneakers, his bald spot not noticeably larger but his shoulder-length hair definitely longer, thumbs tucked under his knapsack straps, and a Persian vest over an out-at-the-elbow American workshirt,
from the pocket of which stuck the stem of what, from the bulge at the pocket's base, I recognized as his Van Vogtian meerschaum—Alfred!

He came across the lawn, grinning hawkishly, and said: “Do you know what you left behind in England and I have carried all the way to India and back?”

“What . . .?” I asked, quite surprised at his introduction and charmed by this dispensing with phatic chatter.

“Your sketch pad! Hello, Vanessa . . .” to our hostess, and gave her a large hug. The high, aluminum rack of his backpack swayed above his shoulders.

To explain what happened that afternoon, I might mention explicitly several things implicit already about both Alfred and Vanessa. She, for instance, is very generous, a far more talented painter than I, and has several easels in her studio—the converted top floor of the villa. And Alfred, as I'm sure you've realized, has a rather strange mind at the best of times, which also entails a rather strange sense of humor.

At any rate, some hours later, I was walking through the white dining room, with its sparse brass and wood decoration, when I noticed, through the open iron casement, out in the sunlit Italian garden, one of Vanessa's easels set up a few yards from the window; and set up
on
the easel was
my
sketch pad, with my drawing of last year's rain-battered, English sycamore.

While I looked at it, Alfred came climbing in over the windowsill, dropped to the floor, spilling a few cinders onto the waxed floorboards, and, kicking at them, gave me a great grin: “There,” he said, “Go on! Make a true statement—an accurate verbal model of the situation outside the window! Quick!”

“Well,” I said, smiling and a bit puzzled, “it seems that there's . . .” I paused, about to say ‘my picture outside,' but I remembered our colloquy back in rainy Britain: “. . . that there's my
model
outside!”

“Just what I was hoping you would say,” Alfred said. “It saves even more pages of semiological hair-splitting!”

“And,” I said, encouraged by this, “the model outside is true, too! Alfred, what have you been doing in India?”

“Amazing amounts of shit,” Alfred said warmly. “Do you know, Plato
was
right, after all—at least about method. As far as semiological hairsplitting is concerned, we just dispensed with practically a chapter and a half! A dialogue that you can make up as you go along really
is
the only way to get anything done in philosophy.”

I looked out at my picture again. “Then it
is
my model. And my model
is
true.”

“Your first statement is true.” Alfred's smile became warmer still. ‘Your second is nonsense—no, don't look so crestfallen. Just listen a moment: whether your model is a statement, a drawing, or even a thought, it is still a thing like any other thing: that is, it has its particular internal structure, and its various elements are undergoing their various processes, be that merely the process of enduring. Now you may have chosen any aspect of this thing—part of its material, part of its structure, or part of its process—to do the bulk of the modeling for you,
while
it was in the modular context. And, yes, outside that context, the model is still the
same
thing. But it
is
outside the context. Therefore, pointing out
this
window at
that
picture and calling it, or any part of it—material, structure, or process—‘true' or ‘false' is just as nonsensical now as it would have been for you, back in that abysmal May we spent in South Bernham, to point out the window and call some
thing
out there ‘true' or ‘false' . . . the rain, the shape of the drops, or the falling. A fine distinction has to be made. Whether the model functions as true or functions as false
within
the context may have something to do with the internal structure
of
the model. But whether the model functions (as true
or
false) has to do with the structure
of
the context. If you would like to, look at it this way: ‘true' and ‘false' merely model two mutually exclusive ways a given model (which is a thing) may function in a given context, depending on other things, which may, in different contextual positions, function as models. But the meaningfulness of the
ascription
of true or false is dependent on the context, not the thing.” Alfred took another draw on his pipe, found it was out, and frowned. “Um . . . now why don't you take out that piece of paper you have folded up in the breast pocket of your Pendleton and look at it again—excuse me, I could have suggested you take it out of your wallet and avoided the implication that you hadn't washed your shirt since last summer, but now I am just trying to save you pages of semiological elaboration.”

Feeling a bit strange, I fingered into my breast pocket, found the paper I had so summarily folded up a summer before, and unfolded it, while Alfred went on: “Think of it in this wise: if something is in the proper, logical position, it may be called true or false. If it moves out of that position, though it is still the same
thing
, you
can't
call it true or false.”

And, creased through horizontally, I read:

The statement on the other side of this paper is true
.

“Alfred—” I frowned—“if there
is
a statement on the other side of this paper (and, unless my memory plays tricks, there is) and it is
meaningful
to call
that
statement true or false—now I'm only letting the internal structure of
this
statement suggest a line of reasoning, I'm not accepting from it any information about
its
‘truth' or ‘falsity', ‘meaningfulness' or ‘meaninglessness'—that means (does it not?) that it is in the proper position in the modular context to do some modeling.”

“Even as you or I, when we stand at the window looking at what's outside.”

“And if
that
statement refers to what's on
this
side of the paper (and memory assures me that it does), then they are in the same context, which means they cannot both occupy the same position in it at the same time.”

“Have you ever tried to stand out in the garden and inside the sitting room all at once? It
is
a bit difficult.”

“So
if
that is the case, then
this
statement has to be considered just as a . . . thing, like rain, or a sycamore, or a garden . . .”

“Or a sketch of a garden. Or a statement. Or a thought.
They
are things too.”

“But I recall distinctly. Alfred: The statement on the other side of the paper calls this statement—this
thing
!—false!”

“Wouldn't really matter if it called it true, would it—”

“Of course it wouldn't! In the context I just outlined, I could no more call this . . . thing—” I waved the statement—“‘true' than I could call—” I looked out the window at the easel with my sketch—“
that
thing true!”

“Though that does not reflect on its potential for truth if placed in another contextual position. If, for example, the statement on the other side of the paper read: ‘Your picture is in the garden,' then it would be perfectly fine. Actually, it can work quite serially; what we're really establishing is simply the unidirectionality of the modular context
from
the real. But then, all that semiological hair-splitting . . . Better turn over the paper and see if your memory isn't playing tricks on you.”

Hastily I did. And read:

The statement on the other side of this paper is false
.

“Yes,” I said, “there
is
a statement on this side, and it does attribute truth-or-falsity to the statement on the other. Which is nonsensical. It's standing inside the sitting room in Bernham looking out the window and calling the rain ‘true.'”

“You never really did that,” Alfred said. “We just made a model of it that we judged nonsensical—useless in a particular sort of way. Keep looking at the side of the paper you're looking at now—that is: Set up the context in the other direction.”

I did until I had:

“It's the same situation. If I let the
other
statement occupy the modeling position and this occupy the position of the modeled thing, then the fact that the other statement attributes truth or falsity to what's on
this
side means
it's
nonsensical too.”

Alfred nodded. “It's like having, on either side of your paper: ‘The
thing
on the other side of this paper is true (or false); the
thing on
the other side of this paper is false (or true).' Which is an empty situation, in the same way that if you and, say, Vanessa, both had drawing pads and pencils and were sitting where you could see each other's paper, and I gave you the instructions: ‘Both of you draw only what the other is drawing.' You'd both end up with empty pictures.”

“Speaking of Vanessa,” I said, “let us go see what she is doing. She
is
a better artist than I am, which I suspect means that on some level, she has established a more interesting modular context with reality than I have. Perhaps she will take a break from her work and have some coffee with us.”

“Splendid,” said Alfred. “Oh, you asked me what I was doing in India? Well, while I was there, I got hold of some . . .” But that is another story too.

28. Language suggests that “truth” (or “falsity”) may be an attribute of sentences much as “redness” may be an attribute of apples. The primary language model is the adjective “true,” the secondary one a noun, “truth,” derived from the adjective. This is not the place to begin the argument against the whole concept of attributes. (It goes back to Leibniz's inseparable subject/verbs for true predicates; Quine has demonstrated how well we can get along in formal logic without attributes, as well as without the whole concept of propositions.) But I maintain that, subsumed under the noun “truth,” is a directed binary relation, running from the real to the uttered, by way of the mind. The problems we have concerning “truth” (such as the paradox in section 27) are problems that arise from having to model a directed binary relationship without a transitive verb.

It is as if, in those situations in which we now say “The hammer strikes the nail” and “The hammer misses the nail,” we were constrained by the language only to speak of “strike nails” and “miss nails,” and to discuss “strikeness” and “missness” as attributes a given nail might or might not possess, depending on the situation, at the same time seldom allowing a mention of the hammer and never the moment of impact.

What “truth” subsumes (as well as an adjective-derived noun can) is a
process
through which apprehension of some area of the real (either
through the senses, or through the memory, or the reality of internal sensation—again, this is not the place to discuss their accuracy) generates a descriptive utterance. This process is rendered highly complex by the existence of choice and imagination and is totally entangled in what Quine and Ullian have called “the web of belief”: confronted with the real, the speaker may choose not to speak at all, or to speak of something else, or she may be mistaken (at any number of levels), or he may generate a description in a mode to which “truth” or “falsity” are simply not applicable (it may be in G. Spencer-Brown's “imaginary” mode). But when the speaker does generate an utterance of the sort we wish to consider, the overall process structure is still binary, and directed from reality to the sentence.

When I look out the window and say “It is raining outside,” what I perceive outside the window is controlling my utterance
in a way
the internal apprehension of which is my apprehension of the statement's “truth” or “falsity.” My utterance does not affect—save possibly in the realms of Heisenberg—whatever (rain or shine) is outside the window.

People have suggested that the problem of paradox sentences is that they are self-descriptive. Yes, but the emphasis should be on
descriptive
, not
self
.

“This sentence contains six words” is just as self-descriptive as “This sentence is false.” But the first sentence is not paradoxical; it is simply wrong. (It contains five words.) The second sentence is paradoxical because part of the description (specifically “This sentence . . .”) covers two things (both the sentence “This sentence is false” and the sentence that it suggests as an equivalent translation, “This sentence is true”) and does not at all refer to the relation between them. The only predicate that
is
visible in “This sentence is . . .” suggests they relate in a way they do not: “This sentence ‘This sentence is true'
is
the sentence ‘This sentence is false.'” And, obviously, it isn't. But the same situation exists in Grelling's paradox, the paradox of the Spanish barber, as well as the set-of-all-normal-sets paradox—indeed, in all antinomies.