1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,921 . Last time, we discussed what arguments 2 00:00:04,921 --> 00:00:09,165 are for, their purposes. We saw that arguments have at least three 3 00:00:09,165 --> 00:00:12,103 purposes, namely persuasion, justification, and 4 00:00:12,103 --> 00:00:15,238 explanation. We also saw that one way to explain 5 00:00:15,238 --> 00:00:20,200 something is to cite it's purpose. So, we can understand why Joe went to the 6 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:25,163 store by seeing that he went to the store because he wanted some milk. 7 00:00:25,163 --> 00:00:29,864 So his purpose was to get milk. Similarly, we can understand arguments by 8 00:00:29,864 --> 00:00:33,455 looking at their purposes, and that's what we last time. 9 00:00:33,455 --> 00:00:36,612 But this time. We're looking at a different kind of 10 00:00:36,612 --> 00:00:39,764 explanation. And as we saw, one way to explain things 11 00:00:39,764 --> 00:00:43,885 is to look at the material. So you want to understand why a MacBook 12 00:00:43,885 --> 00:00:47,280 Air is so light, the answer is, it's made out of aluminum. 13 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:51,351 Similarly, if we want to understand arguments, we're going to gain 14 00:00:51,351 --> 00:00:56,341 understanding by looking carefully at the material that they're made out of. 15 00:00:56,341 --> 00:01:01,332 And we saw that arguments are sets of sentences, statements, and propositions. 16 00:01:01,332 --> 00:01:04,155 So that means they're made out of language. 17 00:01:04,155 --> 00:01:08,752 So, in this lecture, and the next few, we're going to look at the nature of 18 00:01:08,752 --> 00:01:11,970 language in order to better understand arguments. 19 00:01:11,970 --> 00:01:17,166 So, if we know that arguments are made out of language, we know that the only 20 00:01:17,166 --> 00:01:21,542 creatures who can give arguments are ones that can use language. 21 00:01:21,542 --> 00:01:27,011 Now some people think that other animals can use language, and there's a minimum 22 00:01:27,011 --> 00:01:30,020 kind of language that other animals can use. 23 00:01:30,020 --> 00:01:35,284 But other animals cannot use language that's complex enough to make argument 24 00:01:35,284 --> 00:01:37,814 with. It might seem that there's some 25 00:01:37,814 --> 00:01:40,139 exceptions. Here's one possibility. 26 00:01:40,139 --> 00:01:41,370 [FOREIGN], . 27 00:01:41,370 --> 00:01:48,090 [FOREIGN] 28 00:01:48,090 --> 00:01:52,622 But no matter what it sounds like, this goat is not really arguing. 29 00:01:52,622 --> 00:01:57,840 Maybe he's fighting, maybe he's fending off what he takes to be an enemy, but 30 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:01,754 he's not arguing. So, if other animals can use language, we 31 00:02:01,754 --> 00:02:04,845 can't define humans as the animal that talks. 32 00:02:04,845 --> 00:02:08,347 But we can define humans as the animal that argues, 33 00:02:08,347 --> 00:02:13,359 or as Aristotle said, the rational animal, the animal that reasons, because 34 00:02:13,359 --> 00:02:18,029 other animals don't do that. Humans are the only one that argues and 35 00:02:18,029 --> 00:02:19,733 reasons in this sense. So, 36 00:02:19,733 --> 00:02:24,829 we can understand humans and arguments better if we understand language better. 37 00:02:24,829 --> 00:02:29,281 Now I can't tell you everything that needs to be said about language. 38 00:02:29,281 --> 00:02:32,442 You'd need to take a linguistics course for that. 39 00:02:32,442 --> 00:02:36,506 And I recommend that you try one, because it's very interesting. 40 00:02:36,506 --> 00:02:41,409 But here I'm only going to be able to make four basic points about language. 41 00:02:41,409 --> 00:02:45,279 First of all, language is important. Second, it's conventional. 42 00:02:45,279 --> 00:02:48,570 Third, it's representational. And fourth, it's social. 43 00:02:48,570 --> 00:02:53,492 That should at least get us going in understanding what arguments are made of. 44 00:02:53,492 --> 00:02:58,852 First, language is important. It would be extremely difficult to live 45 00:02:58,852 --> 00:03:03,266 life without language. Just try to imagine what it would be 46 00:03:03,266 --> 00:03:05,735 like. It's really hard to imagine. 47 00:03:05,735 --> 00:03:11,272 But think about someone like Helen Keller, who was born able to see and 48 00:03:11,272 --> 00:03:16,210 hear, but very shortly thereafter lost her ability to see and hear. 49 00:03:16,210 --> 00:03:22,368 It was only much later in life that she gained the ability to use language, 50 00:03:22,368 --> 00:03:26,000 because she never had that in her early years. 51 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,193 And when she gained that ability, she was amazed. 52 00:03:30,193 --> 00:03:34,768 W, a, t, e, r, water. It has a name. 53 00:03:34,768 --> 00:03:35,307 W, a, t. 54 00:03:35,307 --> 00:03:44,861 [SOUND] When Helen Keller gained the ability to use language and to 55 00:03:44,861 --> 00:03:50,050 communicate, she didn't become able to see or hear. 56 00:03:50,050 --> 00:03:53,995 She still couldn't see or hear, but she could do amazing things. 57 00:03:53,995 --> 00:03:57,062 She went around the country giving presentations. 58 00:03:57,062 --> 00:04:01,758 She graduated from Radcliffe College. All of that was made available to her, 59 00:04:01,758 --> 00:04:05,265 simply by adding language and communication to her life. 60 00:04:05,265 --> 00:04:09,835 So language is extremely useful, and that explains why it's all around us. 61 00:04:09,835 --> 00:04:14,782 Just imagine walking down the streets of the city and all the signs that you'd 62 00:04:14,782 --> 00:04:17,161 see. You just see words here, there and 63 00:04:17,161 --> 00:04:19,571 everywhere. And now we have a mystery. 64 00:04:19,571 --> 00:04:24,404 If we're not paying attention to language, then how can we use it so well 65 00:04:24,404 --> 00:04:28,774 to achieve so many purposes? The answer to that lies in the second 66 00:04:28,774 --> 00:04:33,608 general feature of language that I want to talk about, namely, language is 67 00:04:33,608 --> 00:04:36,057 conventional. But what's a convention? 68 00:04:36,057 --> 00:04:41,553 Remember that in the United States people drive on the right-hand side of the road. 69 00:04:41,553 --> 00:04:44,529 That's our convention. But what does that mean? 70 00:04:44,529 --> 00:04:49,594 It means that there's a general pattern of behavior that most people throughout 71 00:04:49,594 --> 00:04:54,660 society obey on a regular basis, and they criticize people who deviate from that 72 00:04:54,660 --> 00:04:57,256 pattern. And the same applies to language. 73 00:04:57,256 --> 00:05:02,321 We have certain patterns of using words in certain ways, and when people deviate 74 00:05:02,321 --> 00:05:06,943 from those patterns we criticize them. We say they're misspeaking or it's 75 00:05:06,943 --> 00:05:09,471 ungrammatical. Of course, conventions can vary. 76 00:05:09,471 --> 00:05:13,494 Everybody knows that there are many countries around the world where people 77 00:05:13,494 --> 00:05:17,887 don't drive on the right-hand side of the road, they drive on the left-hand side of 78 00:05:17,887 --> 00:05:20,428 the road. United Kingdom's one of them, but there 79 00:05:20,428 --> 00:05:23,033 are lots more. And the same applies to language. 80 00:05:23,033 --> 00:05:27,665 You can have the same word that's used to mean very different things in different 81 00:05:27,665 --> 00:05:30,491 languages. Most notorious example is football. 82 00:05:30,491 --> 00:05:35,726 In the United States it's used to refer to American Football whereas in the rest 83 00:05:35,726 --> 00:05:39,733 of the world it's used to refer to what Americans call soccer. 84 00:05:39,733 --> 00:05:45,162 And people in the rest of the world think that America is kind of silly because you 85 00:05:45,162 --> 00:05:50,332 don't use your feet on the ball except for punting and placekicking in football. 86 00:05:50,332 --> 00:05:55,503 But whether it makes sense or not the point here is simply that the conventions 87 00:05:55,503 --> 00:05:58,670 can vary from one part of the world to the other. 88 00:05:58,670 --> 00:06:01,539 And of course, you can do that with any word. 89 00:06:01,539 --> 00:06:05,517 You could, in English, use the word, money to refer to socks, 90 00:06:05,517 --> 00:06:08,713 At least the English language could've done that. 91 00:06:08,713 --> 00:06:12,039 It could've done that. It didn't, but it could've. 92 00:06:12,039 --> 00:06:15,691 So, in this way, conventions seem to be kind of arbitrary. 93 00:06:15,691 --> 00:06:20,256 They could've been very different. But language is far from completely 94 00:06:20,256 --> 00:06:24,916 arbitrary, because the conventions of language have limits, and two of these 95 00:06:24,916 --> 00:06:29,382 limits that I want to emphasize come from the fact that language is also 96 00:06:29,382 --> 00:06:33,420 representational and social. So first language is representational. 97 00:06:33,420 --> 00:06:38,566 When we use language, we're often trying to refer to objects in the world, and 98 00:06:38,566 --> 00:06:42,978 describe facts in the world. And you can't change those objects or 99 00:06:42,978 --> 00:06:45,986 those facts merely by changing your language. 100 00:06:45,986 --> 00:06:50,264 One good story to illustrate this is about the young Lincoln. 101 00:06:50,264 --> 00:06:55,745 When he was a lawyer, he supposedly examined a witness during a trial, and he 102 00:06:55,745 --> 00:06:58,752 said. Okay, how many legs does a horse have? 103 00:06:58,752 --> 00:07:02,569 And the witness said four. And then Lincoln said, well, 104 00:07:02,569 --> 00:07:06,951 if we call a tail a leg, then how many legs does a horse have? 105 00:07:06,951 --> 00:07:11,765 And the witness said, well, then I suppose the horse would have five 106 00:07:11,765 --> 00:07:14,423 legs. And Lincoln said absolutely not. 107 00:07:14,423 --> 00:07:18,158 That's wrong. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a 108 00:07:18,158 --> 00:07:21,391 leg. And the point of this story, whether it's 109 00:07:21,391 --> 00:07:26,636 true historically or not, is that language cannot change the facts of the 110 00:07:26,636 --> 00:07:29,868 world. It can't make horses have five legs, if 111 00:07:29,868 --> 00:07:34,300 you merely change your language. Here's another example. 112 00:07:34,300 --> 00:07:40,228 Suppose that you don't have much money, but you happen to have a lot of socks in 113 00:07:40,228 --> 00:07:43,859 your drawer. Well, you could say, I'm going to use the 114 00:07:43,859 --> 00:07:49,046 word money to refer to socks. And now all of a sudden I've got lots of 115 00:07:49,046 --> 00:07:51,047 money. I'm not poor anymore. 116 00:07:51,047 --> 00:07:55,494 It ain't going to work, and that's because language, again, can't 117 00:07:55,494 --> 00:08:00,903 change your financial situation. because that's a fact about the world, 118 00:08:00,903 --> 00:08:05,350 not about how you're using the word socks or the word money. 119 00:08:05,350 --> 00:08:10,548 And the other limit on the conventions of language comes from the fact that 120 00:08:10,548 --> 00:08:14,584 language is social. Sure, sometimes we talk to ourselves and 121 00:08:14,584 --> 00:08:19,988 use language to write things down, write notes to ourselves for example, without 122 00:08:19,988 --> 00:08:24,982 other people around but basically language evolved because of its social 123 00:08:24,982 --> 00:08:28,333 function. What that means is that there's a point 124 00:08:28,333 --> 00:08:33,464 in following the conventions of the language as shared by the rest of that 125 00:08:33,464 --> 00:08:38,382 society that speaks that language. You know, I've always thought that it was 126 00:08:38,382 --> 00:08:41,797 kind of silly that grapefruits are called grapefruits. 127 00:08:41,797 --> 00:08:45,529 Sure, they're fruits, but they don't look like grapes at all. 128 00:08:45,529 --> 00:08:49,450 They look more like lemons. They're like really big lemons, and. 129 00:08:49,450 --> 00:08:54,414 That's why I think they ought to be called mega lemons. 130 00:08:54,414 --> 00:08:59,717 But If I went to a restaurant, and I wanted to order grapefruit juice. So I 131 00:08:59,717 --> 00:09:04,740 turned to the the service person and said, I'd like some megalemon juice, I 132 00:09:04,740 --> 00:09:09,632 probably wouldn't get what I wanted. And so even if I think the language is 133 00:09:09,632 --> 00:09:14,851 not using the right conventions, there's a point in following the conventions of 134 00:09:14,851 --> 00:09:19,678 the language in order to be able to communicate with other people and get 135 00:09:19,678 --> 00:09:23,005 what I want. And again, the great philosophers Monty 136 00:09:23,005 --> 00:09:27,832 Python saw this very well, when they produced their little clip called, The 137 00:09:27,832 --> 00:09:33,014 Man Who Speaks Only In Anagrams. Our first guest into the studio tonight 138 00:09:33,014 --> 00:09:37,043 is a man who talks entirely in anagrams. Patsee Greot. 139 00:09:37,043 --> 00:09:41,720 Do you enjoy this? I dom certainlyodd revychumso. 140 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:45,102 What's your name? Hamrack, Hamrack Yeterot. 141 00:09:45,102 --> 00:09:49,636 So the point is obvious. Language is shared and once its shared 142 00:09:49,636 --> 00:09:56,040 then it make sense to actually follow the conventions of society even if you don't 143 00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:59,700 like them. Overall then, language is important, and 144 00:09:59,700 --> 00:10:03,621 it's conventional in ways that might seem arbitrary. 145 00:10:03,621 --> 00:10:09,578 but actually, is limited in important ways by the fact that language is also 146 00:10:09,578 --> 00:10:14,080 representational and social. But it's kind of cheap to say language is 147 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:16,410 conventional. Which are the conventions? 148 00:10:16,410 --> 00:10:19,099 Which are the rules that language follows? 149 00:10:19,099 --> 00:10:23,461 And this is actually extremely complex, because language follows rules or 150 00:10:23,461 --> 00:10:27,584 conventions at many different levels. Just take a real simple example. 151 00:10:27,584 --> 00:10:30,990 You walk into a pizza shop and you say, give me pepperoni. 152 00:10:30,990 --> 00:10:34,500 Well, the person then fixes a pepperoni pizza. 153 00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:37,933 and you pay for it. But how did that work? 154 00:10:37,933 --> 00:10:43,133 That you said, give me pepperoni. Well, first of all notice, that you had 155 00:10:43,133 --> 00:10:48,043 to use words that were meaningful to the person you were speaking to. 156 00:10:48,043 --> 00:10:51,379 Gimme wasn't a word in English, a long time ago, 157 00:10:51,379 --> 00:10:56,537 but this person understands gimme as a word, and therefore they can understand 158 00:10:56,537 --> 00:10:58,984 it. But in addition to those semantic 159 00:10:58,984 --> 00:11:03,349 constraints, you also have to have physical production constraints. 160 00:11:03,349 --> 00:11:07,978 You have to say it loud enough. If the pizza shop is really noisy, then 161 00:11:07,978 --> 00:11:12,938 you have to speak pretty loudly to get the person behind the counter, to 162 00:11:12,938 --> 00:11:17,435 understand what you're saying. You also have to put the words in the 163 00:11:17,435 --> 00:11:20,808 right order. If, instead of saying, gimme a pepperoni 164 00:11:20,808 --> 00:11:23,980 pizza, you said. pizza a give me pepperoni. 165 00:11:23,980 --> 00:11:27,069 They might not understand at all what you're saying. 166 00:11:27,069 --> 00:11:31,346 So there's structural combination rules that you have to follow as well. 167 00:11:31,346 --> 00:11:35,980 And there are also etiquette rules, in some pizza places if you just said, give 168 00:11:35,980 --> 00:11:39,176 me pepperoni, the waiter might say. Well, forget it, sir. 169 00:11:39,176 --> 00:11:41,900 I don't serve such unpolite, impolite people. 170 00:11:41,900 --> 00:11:46,233 I certainly would say that to my son if my son said, give me pepperoni. 171 00:11:46,233 --> 00:11:50,133 I wouldn't get him a piece. I'd say, you need to ask me properly. 172 00:11:50,133 --> 00:11:55,395 so rules of etiquette can also get in the way of communication and cooperation. 173 00:11:55,395 --> 00:11:58,119 So language operates at all of these levels. 174 00:11:58,119 --> 00:12:02,762 Physical production, semantics, or the meanings of words, syntax, or the rules 175 00:12:02,762 --> 00:12:07,265 of grammar, and etiquette. Now all of this might seem obvious to 176 00:12:07,265 --> 00:12:10,765 you. And it probably should be obvious to you. 177 00:12:10,765 --> 00:12:14,575 But the rules of language are not always obvious. 178 00:12:14,575 --> 00:12:19,708 And that's what we're going to be learning throughout this course. 179 00:12:19,708 --> 00:12:23,208 I'll start with a simple example. What's this? 180 00:12:23,208 --> 00:12:25,308 Well, that is a finger. Okay. 181 00:12:25,308 --> 00:12:27,019 But what's this? Aaaah. 182 00:12:27,019 --> 00:12:29,974 That is a singer. This is not a finger. 183 00:12:29,974 --> 00:12:35,348 That's not a singer. Why do we pronounce the word finger with 184 00:12:35,348 --> 00:12:39,352 a hard g and the word singer with a soft g? 185 00:12:39,352 --> 00:12:46,709 That's a rule that we all follow, but very few people know the rule behind that 186 00:12:46,709 --> 00:12:50,248 pronunciation. So, do you know the rule? 187 00:12:50,248 --> 00:12:58,320 Take a little while and think about it. . 188 00:13:08,020 --> 00:13:11,916 Have you got it yet? Okay, I'll tell you the answer. 189 00:13:11,916 --> 00:13:17,761 When a word ends in n, g, e, r, and it's derived from a verb that ends in NG, then 190 00:13:17,761 --> 00:13:22,826 you get a soft G, like singer. But when the word that ends in n, g, e, 191 00:13:22,826 --> 00:13:28,827 r, is not derived from a verb that ends in NG, then you get either a hard G, like 192 00:13:28,827 --> 00:13:32,334 finger, or a kind of medium g like plunger or 193 00:13:32,334 --> 00:13:36,215 danger. Now when you get that medium G or that 194 00:13:36,215 --> 00:13:40,532 hard G that's a trickier question. And I don't know the answer to that one. 195 00:13:40,532 --> 00:13:45,257 Which shows that we can all use language according to rules, without knowing what 196 00:13:45,257 --> 00:13:48,232 the rules are. We don't have to be conscious of the 197 00:13:48,232 --> 00:13:51,440 rules at all. And a lot of what we're going to be doing 198 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:55,932 in this course is looking behind our language to try to figure out the rules 199 00:13:55,932 --> 00:14:00,483 that govern the way we use language, especially when we're making arguments in 200 00:14:00,483 --> 00:14:03,049 order to better understand what we're doing. 201 00:14:03,049 --> 00:14:06,900 Some of the answers we give will be obvious once you mention them. 202 00:14:06,900 --> 00:14:10,060 But, I bet you hadn't thought of him before.