Philosophy matters…

Philosophy matters. It matters more than most people realize, because philosophical ideas that have developed over the centuries enter our culture in the form of a world view and affect us in thousands of ways. Philosophy matters in the academic world because the conceptual frameworks upon which entire academic disciplines rest usually have roots in philosophy—roots so deep and invisible that they are usually not even noticed. This is certainly true in my own field, linguistics, where the classical theory of categories and certain attendant philosophical assumptions have been taken so much for granted that alternative assumptions seem unthinkable. One of my purposes is to show that the classical theory of categories is inadequate for the study of natural language as well as other aspects of the mind and that new philosophical assumptions are required in order to make sense of linguistic phenomena and other aspects of cognition.—George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 157

Mind as computer?

Since the digital computer works by symbol manipulation and since its symbols can be interpreted in terms of a data base, which is often viewed as a partial model of reality, the computer has been taken by many as essentially possessing the capacity to reason. This is the basis of the contemporary mind-as-computer metaphor, which has spread from computer science and cognitive psychology to the culture at large.—George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, 7–8

Capacity to reason

The capacity to reason is usually taken as defining what human beings are and as distinguishing us from other things that are alive. If we understand reason as being disembodied, then our bodies are only incidental to what we are. If we understand reason as mechanical—the sort of thing a computer can do—then we will devalue human intelligence as computers get more efficient. If we understand rationality as the capacity to mirror the world external to human beings then we will devalue those aspects of the mind that can do infinitely more than that. If we understand reason as merely literal, we will devalue art.—George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, xvi

A summary of a few Greek particles

I append here a brief summary of my suggestions for these particles:

Ἵνα introduces a potential state of affairs;
Ὅτι by contrast introduces an actual state of affairs, from the perspective of the speaker;
Ὡς alerts the reader to expect a representation that may not in fact be a true state of affairs;
Καίπερ constrains the logical relations possible with participles;
Γάρ supports previous material
While οὖν asserts the relevance of new material.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 98

More on οὖν

The procedural instruction that the particle οὖν gives is: ‘this is still relevant’! In other words it encourages the reader to proceed with the text in the belief that the new information is pertinent and directly related to what has gone before. This is particularly necessary if there has been a small digression, as frequently (but not always) happens before the introduction of οὖν.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 96

Context, context, context

[Concerning οὖν] As with the other particles, we do not interpret utterances by deciphering a code, but by a process of inferencing which may use semantic concepts but which then draws out implications from contextual and encyclopaedic information. Putting it simply, it is not the ‘meaning’ of individual words that give understanding of utterances, but the whole background of shared knowledge between speaker and hearer as well as the surrounding narrative.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 96

But is it true?

When something is presented as a ‘state of affairs’ it does not necessarily mean that it is true, but that the speaker is presenting it as true. The speaker may himself believe that the statement is true but be mistaken in that belief. ὅτι was dealt with earlier when considering the way in which humans represent the words of others, but it is worth mentioning again here. It is clearly related to the use of ἵνα, but in this context it guides a hearer in interpreting what follows as an actual, rather than a potential, state of affairs.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 81 (emphasis original)

Actual vs. potential state of affairs (Greek)

The particle ὅτι may be usefully regarded as operating in a manner parallel to that of ἵνα but giving procedural instructions to a reader or hearer to read the following text as describing an actual state of affairs, rather than the potential one ἵνα introduces. In simple terms, ὅτι introduces a description of a situation, Whereas ἵνα introduces a potential situation: what the speaker or subject wants to see happening or thinks should be happening. Here the mood of the verbs in the corresponding clauses supports this analysis with the indicative indicating ‘fact’ — as presented by the speaker or subject — and the subjunctive indicating potentiality.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 80 (emphasis original)

Those Greek particles

There are some small words in Greek that are very helpful guides in interpreting the phrases or clauses that they introduce. Traditionally, they have been read as if they have a fixed lexical meaning, and this has led to some difficult translations both logically and theologically, in which a theological agenda has been pinned on a fixed lexical meaning that the language cannot sustain. Relevance theory deals with such words as giving procedural instructions to a reader or hearer to process the following phrase, clause or sentence in a certain way. In other words, it constrains the range of possible meanings and gives clues to the reader about the communicative intention of the author. The assumption is that these are present in the text to make something ostensive.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 71

How to recognize irony

It is the fact that there is no linguistic marker to introduce irony which makes its identification so difficult. The playwright Tom Stoppard is quoted as saying that there should be a typeface for irony since readers so often fail to recognise it and thereby either misunderstand the speaker’s words or regard him as a liar! The need for irony to be recognised is obvious: if we attribute to a speaker thoughts or opinions that he does not hold then we are misrepresenting him, and in biblical text this is very serious.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 54–55

Literalness is not normative or privileged

The book of Revelation raises huge interpretative issues, particularly in relation to what is considered to be literal and what metaphorical. In considering metaphor as ‘loose resemblance’ to what ‘John’ saw in a vision, we may be able to remove some of the difficulties with what appear to be polar opposites from a traditional standpoint. If we are able to view expressions such as ‘a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all the green grass was burned up’ as a loose resemblance indicating great destruction, then we are able to deal with the fact of the grass of the earth, plants and trees being spared destruction in the following chapter.

It is important to recognise that, contrary to what we may believe, literalness is not normative or privileged.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 40–41

Representative, not verbatim

Sperber and Wilson point out that ‘direct quotations are the most obvious examples of utterances used to represent not what they describe but what they resemble." This needs to be constantly borne in mind, since the expectation of exact resemblance is a modern notion. Even when direct speech is marked as such by textual punctuation, expectations of faithful representation are a modern phenomenon. The lengthy speeches found in the works of Thucydides, Xenophon and others are most unlikely to have been represented in the exact form in which they were spoken, although Polybius, criticising other historians, claims that he was reporting what was actually said.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 30

How do we get there?

What relevance theory aims to do is not to produce better interpretations than actual hearers or readers do, but to explain how they arrive at the interpretations they do construct, whether successfully or unsuccessfully.—D. Wilson, “Relevance and the Interpretation of Literary Works,” UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 2011, 69–80, cited in —Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read,28

Hey! It works!

The truly wonderful thing about RT [relevance theory] is that it works! It is actually true to human behaviour and expectations, in describing how we not only make sense of words and phrases, but also body language. Furthermore, it gives a very good account of the way in which communication may fail and this is true not only to personal experience, but to the many examples in the biblical text.https://wipfandstock.com/9781532603679/a-relevant-way-to-read/ —Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 26

But it's supposed to make sense!

Humans assume that what is being addressed to them makes sense and they will either struggle until they find a relevant interpretation, or give up the attempt if the effort is greater than the potential interpretation.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 24

Language as underdetermined

When we say that language is underdetermined, we are asserting that humans do not say everything they ‘mean’ but only what is ‘relevant’. A speaker does not have to spell out every single detail of his potential communication. To do so would make communication overloaded and so be less relevant to the hearer.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 12

As much, and no more

Put briefly and in colloquial terms, relevance causes us to say as much as we need to and no more. Too much information is a distraction. Relevance is also the principle that guides our interpretation of the speaker’s attitude to the information which he is communicating.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 10

The principle of relevance

In spoken or written communication the main principle that creates successful communication is the principle of relevance. The speaker assumes that a hearer listens to what he has to say because she is interested in it: it has relevance for her. That may seem to be overstating the position of the hearer, but in fact we do not merely throw words at one another; those words do relate to situations, contexts in which both speaker and hearer share a common body of knowledge. Humans do not make remarks, or even signs, without an assumption that the hearer will increase her knowledge by listening, or will be able to reassess some information previously held. We listen because we expect relevance, even though we might not articulate it as such. This does not necessarily, or even usually, involve a conscious process, but even a superficial consideration of why we communicate with one another involves the belief that the listener will have some interest in what we have to say. This might not be the perspective of the hearer, or necessarily be of benefit to the hearer, but it will be relevant to her. Even those situations in which a speaker wants to obtain information may give some relevance to a hearer. On many occasions fear makes us unwilling to ask a question, or to ask for help, because of the inferences which the hearer will draw from such a request. The hearer may not want to hear what a speaker has to say but that does not thereby deny its relevance.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 4

An intention to communicate

I would suggest then that the very fact of creating a text for public view implies that the writer has an interest in making something manifest to someone other than himself. He is indicating his intention to communicate. This may seem trite, but it is a necessary presupposition to any attempt to interpret an utterance. If a writer has the intention to communicate, then the effort of interpretation is not a futile one. It may not be successful, but it is certainly worth the effort. Authorial intention has been regarded as an irrecoverable notion in recent scholarship, but given the communicator’s ‘intention to inform’ it is a legitimate exercise to attempt to find clues to such intention in the speech or text, even if there is no certainty.—Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read, 2

the way of the cross

The Way of the Cross is not the Way of the Sword.—Scot McKnight, The Audacity of Peace, 97

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An appropriate ending to this little book. Monday we start another book from way back in 2016 that I'm finally getting around to reading: Margaret Sim, A Relevant Way to Read. I hope you enjoy it. Here's the publisher blurb:

In A Relevant Way to Read, Margaret G. Sim draws on her in-depth knowledge of New Testament Greek to forge a new exegesis of the Gospels and Paul's letters. Locating her studies in the linguistic concept of relevance theory, which contends that all our utterances are laden with crucial yet invisible context, Sim embarks on a journey through some of the New Testament's most troubling verses. Here she recovers lost information with a meticulous analysis that should enlighten both the experienced scholar and the novice. Whether discussing Paul's masterful use of irony to shame the Corinthians, or introducing the ground-breaking ideas behind relevance theory into a whole new field of study, the author demonstrates her vast learning and experience while putting her complex subject into plain words for the developing student.

</idle musing>