350.
“I know that that’s a tree” is something a philosopher might say to
demonstrate to himself or someone else that he knows something that is
not a mathematical or logical truth. Similarly, someone who was entertaining
the idea that he was no use anymore might keep repeating to himself “I can
still do this and this and this”. If such thoughts often possessed him one
would not be surprised if he, apparently out of all context, spoke such a
sentence out aloud. (But here I have already sketched a background, a
surrounding, for this remark, that is to say given it context.) But if someone,
in quite heterogeneous circumstances, called out with the most convincing
mimicry: “Down with him!”, one might say of these words (and their tone) that they
were a pattern that does indeed have familiar applications, but that in this
case it was not even clear what language the man in question was
speaking. I might make with my hand the movement I should make if I were
holding a hand-saw and sawing through a plank; but would one have any right to
call this movement sawing, out of all context? – (It might be
something quite different!)
‘Down with him!’ –
and –
‘I might make with my hand the movement I
should make if I were holding a hand-saw and sawing through a plank’
these actions – if they have no context –
are unknown
and when we give context – to make known –
we have no way of knowing with
certainty –
that the context we provide –
is the context that others provide
we make assumptions –
and we work with our assumptions –
without knowing
© greg t.charlton. 2010.
