Lecture 5 - What Are Arguments Made Of - Language

Last time, we discussed what arguments are

for, their purposes.
We saw that arguments have at least three

purposes,
namely, persuasion, justification, and

explanation.
We also saw that one way to explain

something is to cite its purpose.
So, we can understand why Joe went to the

store by seeing that he went to the store
because he wanted some milk.

So his purpose was to get milk.
Similarly, we can understand arguments by

looking at their purposes, and that's what
we did last time.

But this time,
we're looking at a different kind of

explanation.
And as we saw, one way to explain things

is to look at the material.
So you want to understand why a MacBook

Air is so light, the answer is, it's made
out of aluminum.

Similarly, if we want to understand
arguments, we're going to gain understanding

by looking carefully at the material that
they're made out of.

And we saw that arguments are sets of
sentences, statements, and propositions.

So that means they're made out of
language.

So, in this lecture, and the next few,
we're going to look at the nature of

language in order to better understand
arguments.

So, if we know that arguments are made out
of language, we know that the only

creatures who can give arguments are ones
that can use language.

Now some people think that other animals
can use language, and there's a minimum

kind of language that other animals can
use.

But other animals cannot use language
that's complex enough to make argument

with.
It might seem that there's some

exceptions.
Here's one possibility.

But no matter what it sounds

like, this goat is not really arguing.
Maybe he's fighting, maybe he's fending

off what he takes to be an enemy, but he's
not arguing.

So, if other animals can use language, we
can't define humans as the animal that

talks.
But we can define humans as the animal

that argues,
or as Aristotle said, the rational animal,

the animal that reasons, because other
animals don't do that.

Humans are the only one that argues and
reasons in this sense.

So,
we can understand humans and arguments

better if we understand language better.
Now I can't tell you everything that needs

to be said about language.
You'd need to take a linguistics course

for that.
And I recommend that you try one,

because it's very interesting.
But here I'm only going to be able to make

four basic points about language.
First of all, language is important.

Second, it's conventional.
Third, it's representational.

And fourth, it's social.
That should at least get us going in

understanding what arguments are made of.
First, language is important.

It would be extremely difficult to live
life without language.

Just try to imagine what it would be like.
It's really hard to imagine.

But think about someone like Helen Keller,
who was born able to see and hear, but

very shortly thereafter lost her ability
to see and hear.

It was only much later in life that she
gained the ability to use language,

because she never had that in her early
years.

And when she gained that ability, she was
amazed.

W, a, t, e, r, water.
It has a name.

W, a, t.

When Helen Keller gained the ability to
use language and to communicate, she

didn't become able to see or hear.
She still couldn't see or hear, but she

could do amazing things.
She went around the country giving

presentations.
She graduated from Radcliffe College.

All of that was made available to her,
simply by adding language and

communication to her life.
So language is extremely useful, and that

explains why it's all around us.
Just imagine walking down the streets of

the city and all the signs that you'd see.
You just see words here, there and

everywhere.
And now we have a mystery.

If we're not paying attention to language,
then how can we use it so well to achieve

so many purposes?
The answer to that lies in the second

general feature of language that I want to
talk about, namely, language is

conventional.
But what's a convention?

Remember that in the United States people
drive on the right-hand side of the road.

That's our convention.
But what does that mean?

It means that there's a general pattern of
behavior that most people throughout

society obey on a regular basis, and they
criticize people who deviate from that

pattern.
And the same applies to language.

We have certain patterns of using words in
certain ways, and when people deviate from

those patterns we criticize them.
We say they're misspeaking or it's

ungrammatical.
Of course, conventions can vary.

Everybody knows that there are many
countries around the world where people

don't drive on the right-hand side of the
road, they drive on the left-hand side of

the road.
United Kingdom's one of them, but there

are lots more.
And the same applies to language.

You can have the same word that's used to
mean very different things in different

languages.
Most notorious example is football.

In the United States it's used to refer to
American Football whereas in the rest of

the world it's used to refer to what
Americans call soccer.

And people in the rest of the world think
that America is kind of silly because you

don't use your feet on the ball except for
punting and placekicking in football.

But whether it makes sense or not the
point here is simply that the conventions

can vary from one part of the world to the
other.

And of course, you can do that with any
word.

You could, in English, use the word, money
to refer to socks. At least the English

language could've done that.
It could've done that.

It didn't, but it could've.
So, in this way, conventions seem to be

kind of arbitrary.
They could've been very different.

But language is far from completely
arbitrary, because the conventions of

language have limits, and two of these
limits that I want to emphasize come from

the fact that language is also
representational and social.

So first language is representational.
When we use language, we're often trying

to refer to objects in the world, and
describe facts in the world.

And you can't change those objects or
those facts merely by changing your

language.
One good story to illustrate this is about

the young Lincoln.
When he was a lawyer, he supposedly

examined a witness during a trial, and he
said,

Okay, how many legs does a horse have?
And the witness said, Four.

And then Lincoln said, Well,
if we call a tail a leg, then how many

legs does a horse have?
And the witness said, Well,

then I suppose the horse would have five
legs.

And Lincoln said, Absolutely not.
That's wrong.

Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a
leg.

And the point of this story, whether it's
true historically or not, is that language

cannot change the facts of the world.
It can't make horses have five legs, if

you merely change your language.
Here's another example.

Suppose that you don't have much money,
But you happen to have a lot of socks in

your drawer.
Well, you could say, I'm going to use the

word money to refer to socks.
And now all of a sudden I've got lots of

money.
I'm not poor anymore.

It ain't going to work,
and that's because language, again, can't

change your financial situation
because that's a fact about the world,

not about how you're using the word socks
or the word money.

And the other limit on the conventions of
language comes from the fact that language

is social.
Sure, sometimes we talk to ourselves and

use language to write things down, write
notes to ourselves, for example, without

other people around but basically language
evolved because of its social function.

What that means is that there's a point in
following the conventions of the language

as shared by the rest of that society that
speaks that language.

I've always thought that it was
kind of silly that grapefruits are called

grapefruits.
Sure, they're fruits, but they don't look

like grapes at all.
They look more like lemons.

They're like really big lemons, and
that's why I think they ought to be called

mega lemons.
But If I went to a restaurant, and I

wanted to order grapefruit juice, so I
turned to the service person and

said, I'd like some mega lemon juice, I
probably wouldn't get what I wanted.

And so even if I think the language is not
using the right conventions, there's a

point in following the conventions of the
language in order to be able to

communicate with other people and get what
I want.

And again, the great philosophers Monty
Python saw this very well, when they

produced their little clip called, The Man
Who Speaks Only In Anagrams.

Our first guest into the studio tonight is
a man who talks entirely in anagrams.

Patsee Greot.
Do you enjoy this?

I dom certainlyodd revychumso.
What's your name?

Hamrack, Hamrack Yeterot.
So the point is obvious.

Language is shared and once it's shared
then it make sense to actually follow the

conventions of society even if you don't
like them.

Overall then, language is important, and
it's conventional in ways that might seem

arbitrary,
but actually, is limited in important ways

by the fact that language is also
representational and social.

But it's kind of cheap to say language is
conventional.

Which are the conventions?
Which are the rules that language follows?

And this is actually extremely complex,
because language follows rules or

conventions at many different levels.
Just take a real simple example.

You walk into a pizza shop and you say,
Gimme pepperoni.

Well, the person then fixes a pepperoni
pizza.

And you pay for it.
But how did that work?

That you said, Gimme pepperoni.
Well, first of all notice, that you had to

use words that were meaningful to the
person you were speaking to.

Gimme wasn't a word in English, a long
time ago,

but this person understands gimme as a
word, and therefore they can understand

it.
But in addition to those semantic

constraints, you also have to have
physical production constraints.

You have to say it loud enough.
If the pizza shop is really noisy, then

you have to speak pretty loudly to get the
person behind the counter, to understand

what you're saying.
You also have to put the words in the

right order.
If, instead of saying, gimme a pepperoni

pizza, you said,
Pizza a gimme pepperoni,

they might not understand at all what
you're saying.

So there are structural combination rules
that you have to follow as well.

And there are also etiquette rules. In
some pizza places if you just said,

Gimme pepperoni, the waiter might say,
Well, forget it, sir.

I don't serve such impolite
people.

I certainly would say that to my son if my
son said, Gimme pepperoni.

I wouldn't get him a piece.
I'd say, you need to ask me properly.

So rules of etiquette can also get in the
way of communication and cooperation.

So language operates at all of these
levels.

Physical production, semantics, or the
meanings of words, syntax, or the rules of

grammar, and etiquette.
Now all of this might seem obvious to you.

And it probably should be obvious to you.
But the rules of language are not always

obvious.
And that's what we're going to be learning

throughout this course.
I'll start with a simple example.

What's this?
Well, that is a finger.

Okay.
But what's this?

Aaaah.
That is a singer.

This is not a finger.
That's not a singer.

Why do we pronounce the word finger with a
hard G and the word singer with a soft G?

That's a rule that we all follow, but very
few people know the rule behind that

pronunciation.
So, do you know the rule?

Take a little while and think about it.
.

Have you got it yet?
Okay, I'll tell you the answer.

When a word ends in N, G, E, R, and it's
derived from a verb that ends in NG, then

you get a soft G, like singer.
But when the word that ends in N, G, E, R,

is not derived from a verb that ends in
NG, then you get either a hard G, like

finger,
Or a kind of medium G like plunger or

danger.
Now when you get that medium G or that

hard G that's a trickier question.
And I don't know the answer to that one,

which shows that we can all use language
according to rules, without knowing what

the rules are.
We don't have to be conscious of the rules

at all.
And a lot of what we're going to be doing

in this course is looking behind our
language to try to figure out the rules

that govern the way we use language,
especially when we're making arguments in

order to better understand what we're
doing.

Some of the answers we give will be
obvious once you mention them.

But, I bet you hadn't thought of him
before.