Illustrations and reading-guide
notwithstanding, Wandering Significance runs to 662 pages. Wilson might justify its length on the grounds that he is challenging a widespread, deeply
entrenched perspective informing enquiry in philosophy (and elsewhere). Indeed,
Wilson considers it a viewpoint that many in ‘the analytic tradition in philosophy’
dogmatically accept and ‘cling devotedly’ to (pp.xiv, 4-5).

Not only is Wandering
Significance large, but often dense and unclear, aggravated by frequent figurative
language and jargon (e.g. ‘classical gluing’, ‘tropospheric complacency’, ‘semantic
fixity’, ‘amphibolism’, ‘interfacial influences’). Besides this, however, Wilson supplies a wealth of examples from disciplines as varied as biomechanics and
ethnomusicology, displaying an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge.

Wilson’s overarching concern is
with the notion concept (and cognates). In his view, ‘concept’ belongs
to ‘the basic vocabulary through which we justify and criticize a wide
range of human activity’; it is a term of ‘conceptual evaluation’ used to appraise
the extent to which a person is ‘conceptually prepared’ for a task (p.2). For
example, one might say of someone struggling to follow the instruction, ‘Layer
the plant’ that she does not grasp that concept of propagation. However, such
innocuous remarks, which aim to steer a person’s understanding, (naturally)
invite the (pernicious) idea that they point to a fixed, invariant standard
against which a person’s capacities are measured. This, Wilson holds, is the
root of the classical view, whose main details are as follows.

Each linguistic expression
possesses a ‘homogenized "content" allegedly able to govern the
correctness’ of its employment ‘at all points in its career’ (p.85). When young,
a speaker acquires a vocabulary of such terms, which remains largely unchanged
as she acquires new information. Any object a speaker encounters possesses
certain attributes, ‘irrespective of how we happen to think about’ them
(p.144). The content of each expression determines, given those attributes,
whether it properly applies. Hence, simply by possessing a concept one can know
what it is for an attribute to be found anyplace. Of course, sometimes concepts
initially present themselves as opaque but, in principle, they ‘can be
successively refined by "clear thinking" until their "contents"
emerge as impeccably clear and well defined’ (p.4). Indeed, it is precisely philosophy’s
job — as ‘custodian of the conceptual domain’ (p.9) — to provide (a priori) such
clarification.

The classical picture is inviting
and many aspects seem platitudinous. Nonetheless, Wilson insists, it is wrong. The
‘generally cantankerous proclivity of the physical world’ is not always amenable
to description by an established vocabulary (p.8), and our capacities to set
our words ‘running along entirely foreseeable paths are limited’ (p.621). While
one might take a term to be associated with certain core ‘directivities’ guiding
its application in an indefinite range of circumstances, Wilson draws attention
to scenarios in which such instructions do not appear to determine a unique
application, or where following them is not straightforward. I shall briefly sketch
two examples.

One might be ‘inclined to presume
that we have a pretty good sense of what the property of being ice
involves’. However, in
theory it should be possible to supercool liquid water until it vitrifies into
a non-crystalline substance of very high viscosity structurally resembling
normal glassware. Is it ice? According to Wilson, it is doubtful that our everyday notion of ice ‘requires — as
opposed to accepts‘ — one judgment rather than another (pp.55-6).

The hues of rubies, Wilson tells us, ‘depend sensitively upon scattered color center impurities in their
matrix’. Imagine examining gems, which would appear red on Earth, in ‘truly
alien climes’ where ‘cold and ill-lit’ conditions ‘induce a subtle shift in the
crystal array, causing the local stones to unexpectedly reflect the dim
sunlight strongly in the green’. Should we judge them to be red (like roses in
the dark on Earth), green (as they appear in their native environment), or no
fixed colour? Surely our inculcated grasp of ‘red’ offers no guide (pp.231-232).

Such cases purportedly undermine
the classical view. No invariant semantic core attaches to a term determining its
correct application in all circumstances, such that through suitable reflection
speakers can always perceive its requirements. Speakers do not, therefore, possess
a clear conception of what it is, in all contexts, for an object to have a
given attribute.

Of course, linguistic activity does
not constantly grind to a halt; speakers employ ‘unusual strategies’ that
enable its continuance (p.8). In considering them, Wilson sketches a seemingly
novel and rich alternative to the classical view, although sadly its details are
not transparent. What follows is a reconstruction.

For a given term, certain
employments of it will display ‘strands of practical advantage’ (p.227), i.e. specific
goals are achieved when it is applied in certain ways. These ‘strands’ guide the
term’s use within a region (or ‘patch’), which thereby latches onto an
attribute. In certain circumstances, however, the accrued procedures carry ‘old
terminology into new territory’ (p.276). When this occurs, speakers might take
themselves to follow precedent. This, however, could lead to what Wilson calls ‘property-dragging’ — the predicate shifts imperceptibly to a new attribute.
Alternatively, speakers might find that established procedures do not determine
a particular application. Nevertheless, cautious use of the term could exhibit
strands of practical advantage and so ‘gradually shape’ to the world’s
particularities (p. 345). Either way, local patches arise that ‘narrate rather
different stories with respect to the events they cover’, that are ‘inconsistent’
and do not ‘cohere’, but that from a global perspective can be seen to be ‘stitched
together’ into an overall pattern (pp.191-2).

Importantly, Wilson insists, many
different factors, of which speakers might be ignorant, influence the trajectory
of an expression. In addition to practical advantage, its application will be
guided by its history, speakers’ current expectations, psychological or
physiological facts, and pragmatic considerations.

Since an expression’s use,
according to Wilson, is governed not by algorithm but by patches of factors
that are ‘seasonal’ in their multiplicity and shifting nature, the term ‘concept’
functions similarly. When one asks if someone grasps a concept, or how it is to
be employed, different answers may (properly) be given depending on such matters.
Likewise, because a term is not governed by a content settling for each object
whether it applies, but by a host of contextually sensitive, rough-and-ready
procedures, the view of nature as a realm of objects determinately possessing
attributes is relinquished.

However convincing this critique, I
doubt the classical view is as rife and entrenched as Wilson contends. He
concedes that earlier thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Quine and Kuhn challenge
it in various respects. Nevertheless, he argues, they err in rejecting the
(genuinely valuable) terms of conceptual evaluation or endorsing ‘holism’. The
latter remains classical — determinate content is just attached to the entire
language rather than individual terms — and is inaccurate — patches have
boundaries.

But I have in mind more
contemporary philosophers, to whom Wilson’s references are few and far between.
While one might concur in rejecting the ‘working presumption that an author
ought to blast every competing vessel from the harbor before he sails his own
skiff in’ (p.16), one should not downplay that classical thinking has been variously
challenged by many prominent philosophers that neither endorse holism nor
reject the vocabulary of conceptual evaluation, and offer positive alternatives
bearing similarities to Wilson’s (see references below).

True, few discard all classical
thought, but perhaps that is because its various aspects are somewhat
independent. Though Wilson tends to present them as standing or falling
together, some can be jettisoned and others retained without inconsistency. For
example, that speakers acquire early a vocabulary that remains largely unaffected
by changes in information seems a wholly optional part of the classical view.
Also, Wilson places a great deal of weight on the ubiquity of cases in which a
speaker cannot establish whether an expression applies. But this
epistemological observation, if true, is compatible with there being a
conceptual content that (unbeknownst to the speaker) fully determines its correct
application.

However interlocking classical ideas
are, surely their proponent can acknowledge the dynamic dimension to language
on which Wilson insists. When an existing term is put to new use as novel
information is acquired or unforeseen circumstances encountered, this can sometimes
be made out to accord with its established understanding. If so, content remains
invariant. If not, new content (similar perhaps to its predecessor) attaches to
the expression; its meaning has simply changed.

In places, Wilson mentions the
latter rejoinder (pp.229-230, 334), but so far as I can tell he offers no
arguments against it. Given its apparent availability to classical thinking, it
surely deserves more attention.

Maybe Wilson would grant that the
classical view can accommodate his examples, but challenge its need to do so, given
the availability of a more tailored alternative. Unfortunately, that
alternative appears to have unpalatable consequences. On Wilson’s account,
correct claims made within different patches using the same expression might be
‘inconsistent’. Indeed, he suggests, evaluations of truth ‘are seasonal and shifting
in their foci’ (p.630); whether a term correctly applies depends on pragmatic,
contextual and psychological factors.

All this suggests that what can truly
be said of the world, and so what the world is like, is not only to various
degrees indeterminate, but in part depends on our circumstances, interests and
capacities. This sounds alarmingly anti-realist. While Wilson unequivocally denies
that we cannot ‘distinguish between the genuine aspects of the world around us
and the personal constructions we happen to bring to their description’ (p.77),
it is uncertain whether he can consistently do so. If he has responses to such
concerns, they are not clearly articulated in the book.

This might seem deep water for a
picture of language to lead us into but, I contend, the classical view is
appealing in part precisely because it avoids these consequences. Perhaps it
appears unfair to focus on such weighty matters, rather than the myriad details
of Wilson’s discussions, but they are arguably decisive.

Even if not alone, Wandering
Significance raises a serious and significant challenge to classical
thinking. It is a shame, then, that its details and suggested alternative are
not more fully and clearly articulated.

 

References

Brandom, R. 2000: Articulating Reasons (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)

Burge, T. 1979: ‘Individualism and the Mental’ Midwest
Studies in Philosophy (4)

Cavell, S. 1999: The Claim of Reason New ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Dancy, J. 2004: Ethics without Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Davidson, D. 2005: Truth, Language, and History (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Dupré, J. 1993: The Disorder of Things (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)

Putnam, H. 1975: Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

—    1981:
Reason, Truth and History (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Recanati, F. 2004: Literal
Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Searle, J. 1979: Expression and Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Taylor, C. 1985: Human Agency and Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Travis, C. 1997: ‘Pragmatics’ A Companion to the Philosophy of
Language B. Hale and C. Wright, eds. (Oxford: Blackwell)

Williamson, T. 1994: Vagueness (London: Routledge)

Wright, C. 2001: Rails to Infinity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press)

 

©
2006 Daniel Whiting

 

Daniel Whiting, PhD, is a Lecturer
in Philosophy at the University of Reading. He specialises in the Philosophy of
Language and Philosophy of Mind.

Categories: Philosophical