Identifying a Philosopher

Aubry

First, I beg you to pardon my ignorance. I need help identifying an essay and its author. Please feel free to condescend, cause I know how thick this must sound

I remember some years back reading the work of a philosopher who discussed his theory of meaning. At the end of the essay, he uses the metaphor of a web to illustrate his belief that there are no essential truths, but that we (as communities?) construct meaning so that there are certain things at the centre which are difficult to change (because so much else changes along with them) and concepts at the edge which are more easily disputed and altered. His main point was that any concept in the web can in fact be altered if you're willing to shuffle enough things around.

There, I've just butchered what was, in its original form, probably a profound insight. Can anybody still identify what I'm talking about?

I have this lurking thought that it may have been Wittgenstein, or somebody associated with him, but that may just be my brain playing tricks.

If anyone can help, I'd be very grateful.

DadaKopf

Sounds like Wittgenstein to me, at least, as I remember some sections of the Philosophical Investigations lectures I was at so many years ago.

hivizman

Aubry wrote: »

First, I beg you to pardon my ignorance. I need help identifying an essay and its author. Please feel free to condescend, cause I know how thick this must sound

I remember some years back reading the work of a philosopher who discussed his theory of meaning. At the end of the essay, he uses the metaphor of a web to illustrate his belief that there are no essential truths, but that we (as communities?) construct meaning so that there are certain things at the centre which are difficult to change (because so much else changes along with them) and concepts at the edge which are more easily disputed and altered. His main point was that any concept in the web can in fact be altered if you're willing to shuffle enough things around.

There, I've just butchered what was, in its original form, probably a profound insight. Can anybody still identify what I'm talking about?

I have this lurking thought that it may have been Wittgenstein, or somebody associated with him, but that may just be my brain playing tricks.

If anyone can help, I'd be very grateful.

This sounds like the 'web of belief' proposed by Willard van Orman Quine in his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", written way back in 1951. It's a long time since I studied this, but I think Quine's position was something along these lines. Quine was looking for a basis for belief that wasn't either 'foundationalism' (this holds that beliefs depend for their justification on more basic beliefs, and there is a set of ultimately basic beliefs that are self-evident - any justified belief is therefore either a basic belief, which doesn't need justifying, or can be traced back to basic beliefs through a chain of reasoning) or 'coherentism' (this holds that beliefs depend on their justification on 'cohering' with all the other justified beliefs). Quine is denying the existence of basic beliefs as posited by foundationalism, but he accepts the existence at any time of socially-determined 'core' beliefs that are taken not to require justification. On the other hand, he denies the need for coherence, accepting that, relative to any particular set of core beliefs, there will be some beliefs on the 'periphery' whose justification may be disputed. His insight is that the set of core beliefs is not fixed or given, but rather emerges as the product of a social process.

FionnMatthew

DadaKopf

Hehehe, that's cool. I heard they had to keep Quine's office door open at all times because he used to letch on the female students who came to see him.

Quine wasn't on my course when I did philosophy, unfortunately. I should really start reading this stuff again. I do remember Wittgenstein approaching something like this, but his view had more to do with coherence?

So, you could say, this general way of thinking is rooted in analytical philosophy. But then there are heads like Foucault approaching things differently. There have also, however, been very interesting sociological and anthropological approaches coming to similar results.

FionnMatthew

You can read the Two Dogmas article online, here, if you want to catch up on it:

http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

A good companion piece is Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, by Wilfrid Sellars.