On the Relation Between Thought and Reality

When we are speaking of knowledge of reality in-itself, we are ultimately speaking of the relation between language and its objects. For knowledge is expressed in language, and so the question of how reality in-itself relates to our knowledge of it, is a question of how the language (which is the same thing as saying the thought it means) relates to its objects in reality.

By knowledge of reality in-itself, I mean that I am aware of truth that exists independently of my own mental activity and being. I mean that I know of things that are completely independent of my mind and sensations: this is awareness of truth outside of myself, knowledge of reality in-itself.

First of all, we must see what it is we are aware of when we are aware of a given truth. If I am standing in my kitchen aware that my refrigerator is white, and I say, "The refrigerator is white," some may hold that I have a certain idea in my mind "the refrigerator" of which I predicate "it is white." On this view, I am relating not the refrigerator in-itself to the predicate that it is white; rather I have a copy, or conception, of that refrigerator, to which mentally I attach the (also a conception) predicate of whiteness.

I used to hold such a view of "representation" about language, but now I do not. It is an attractive idea; on the face of it, it seems absurd to hold that when I say, "The refrigerator is white," I am relating the actual refrigerator and its actual whiteness together in the proposition, rather than my conceptions of each of these things ("the refrigerator" and "whiteness"). It would seem rather that my act of thought when I speak this sentence is an act of relating two conceptions "the refrigerator" and "whiteness"--conceptions held in my mind and having their being there--rather than the language itself being the refrigerator and whiteness.

But if you were to ask me here, "Do you mean your conception of the refrigerator falls into the class of your conception of white things?" I would answer in the negative. When I stand before the refrigerator and say, "The refrigerator is white," I do not mean as the subject of this proposition "my conception of the refrigerator" or any such thing--I mean that refrigerator. I mean that it--in-itself, it and not a "conception" or "mental copy" of it--is white. But how is it that language can come not to represent but to finally, in a sense, be the truth it means to convey? How is it possible for the proposition "The refrigerator is white" to have its being in the whiteness of the refrigerator in-itself, depending on nothing else but the whiteness of that thing in-itself? Is not language by nature representative and symbolic? Does it not always "represent", and isn't it impossible for the proposition "The refrigerator is white" to actually be that whiteness of the refrigerator?

Here we must make a subtle distinction, on which rests the ontological status of any given true proposition. Language is always symbolic, yes. These letters on the page mean things; likewise the words they form mean things; none of these "things they mean" are contained in the literal matter that makes up the letters. The meaning of language is not found in its ink and physical shape on the page. These material aspects of language point beyond themselves to a meaning.

The ontology of a proposition is what it means and not what physical form the symbols take, if we are intelligibly to speak of true and false propositions.

So what is the nature of, not language, but its "meaning"? Certainly, though we are required for purposes of communication to put "meaning" into other words, language does not simply mean "other words". If I am to ask what the sentence: "It was the best of times and the worst of times" really means, and I put it into other words, that must be in turn put into other words, ad infinitum, this gets us nowhere. If all language means is more language, there is nothing after all that any language means. Meaning is awareness of information, rather. Once I put it into some words sufficiently clear to me, I need not go a step further and put those words again into other words. There must be a foundation upon which "meaning" stands at bottom; this is required for the idea that words mean anything at all.

For means of communication, we must put our understanding of a given bit of information--our awareness of a given concept or proposition--into words. But prior to those words lies a quite non-linguistic awareness of what they mean. I do not remember what writer said it, but whoever it was said that words develop to describe their meanings, which are prior to them. Long before there was the word "sadness", there was sadness. The rather cumbersome and physical way human beings must communicate--by means of printed symbols or sounds--requires that any thought we have be put into words. But close attention to one's mind will reveal that at their core words stand for meanings--awareness of information--that fundamentally are non-linguistic, or more precisely pre-linguistic. Some say that every proposition to be intelligible must mean something. But if all each proposition means is, fundamentally, other propositions, we would go on forever replacing words for words. We must arrive finally to that clarity where we know what words mean, whether we put them into yet other words or not.

To go back to our proposition, "The refrigerator is white," what is symbolic in what I have just communicated is the bare physical manifestation of the words on the page. Those symbols point beyond themselves, not to other "conceptions" or "representations" of the refrigerator, but to the refrigerator itself. In a sense, the meaning of the proposition and the refrigerator's whiteness are precisely the same thing. For no one supposes that the words mean anything but to predicate whiteness of "the refrigerator" as it is in-itself. There is a unity there; the refrigerator's whiteness, and nothing else, can make the proposition true. The refrigerator's whiteness does not entail anything but the refrigerator's whiteness for it to be true that it is white. If by "The refrigerator is white" I meant "I predicate my concept of whiteness of my concept of the refrigerator", then we would be in the absurdity that the "refrigerator in-itself" could be black, and the proposition could yet be true so long as my concept of it is white.

The refrigerator has a fact of whiteness; I am aware of it and my awareness of it is expressed in the proposition "The refrigerator is white." Nothing else--whether material or immaterial--is required for the proposition to be true, other than the fact of whiteness in the refrigerator. Thus, perhaps not the proposition, "The refrigerator is white," but rather what the proposition means, is identical with that whiteness itself. I mean by the proposition that fact of whiteness; that fact of whiteness is what the proposition means, nor could the proposition be true without that whiteness, nor need the proposition to have in existence anything material or non-material, other than the refrigerator's whiteness, to be true. We distinguish in philosophy between propositions and physical bodies, but perhaps this is a mistake. I say that the refrigerator's whiteness is a fact; and perhaps if not the proposition itself "The refrigerator is white" be numerically identical with that fact, at least what that proposition means is. The fact of whiteness would be there whether anyone said the proposition at all, and the fact of whiteness is all that there is to what the proposition means.

Now I will hear an objection along the following lines. Certainly the fact of the refrigerator's whiteness is what I am contemplating when I relate the fact, but is not my contemplation a body or entity separate from that body itself? Is not my act of contemplation in a totally different place (inside my head across the room)? And is not my contemplation of the whiteness in some sense or other a separate existence from that whiteness itself? Is not the refrigerator's whiteness one thing, and my contemplation of it another, just as the Mona Lisa is something other than the contemplation of one who is staring at it in a museum?

This objection makes the same mistake as I would make if I wrote, "The refrigerator is white," on a sheet of paper, and then held that the essence of that proposition was made of ink in certain shapes on the page. The language is a physical thing on the page, but what the language means is something totally different. The ontological status of the phrase is not anywhere in that physical ink in certain shapes on the paper. Rather, the ontology of the language resides in what it means. In the same way, one may say that thought is composed of neuron firings in the brain, having its being there; but truly speaking thought is not inside the brain, for the nature of thought is in not its physical makeup but in what it means. Will any thinker suppose that the truth "2 plus 2 equals four" exists in the space of the cranium and is made up of neurons and brain chemicals? Or does anybody think that the nature of the proposition "2 plus 2 equals 4" has anything at all to do with the qualities of the ink on this page? Is there anything more absurd than the notion that a catastrophic World War III could eradicate the truth from the cosmos "The moon orbits the Earth" by annihilating the human race, who are the only creatures that know it? Obviously, thought does not reside in the cranium, and is not made of neurons and chemicals; the nature of thought is not the nature of the matter that makes it up, but is in what that thought means, the facts it expresses. Thought itself is in the cranium, and is made up of neurons firing and the like; but what that thought means has nothing at all to do with the brain; otherwise we'd have to say that the truth-value of the proposition "The refrigerator is white" would somehow be dependent on - or could be impacted by - certain changes in my own psychology, without touching that refrigerator at all. To reduce all thought to a "brain-chemistry event" makes the same mistake of thinking that the nature of what I'm this moment writing - my subject matter and all my rational process - has only to do with the nature of the ink on this page, what sort of font it is made up by, etc. Shapes and lines of ink on the page are the material aspects of written language, but the ontology of that language has nothing to do with ink and its various shapes; it has to do with what those printed words mean. After the same fashion, thought is manifested physically in neuron events, but its nature is what that thought means, not those neurons that are only its physical manifestation.

When I am contemplating the refrigerator's whiteness, the act of thought may be taking place in my cranium; but what that thought means, is the fact of the refrigerator's whiteness; and that fact is in the refrigerator. If a robber blew my brains out as I am contemplating it, he would not eradicate that fact of whiteness; and that fact of whiteness is what my thought means. The two are numerically identical; my thought means "The refrigerator is white" and that the refrigerator is white is the sum and essence of the meaning of my thought: the two are identical.

So we see that for any given true proposition, there is a unity between the proposition and the fact it describes. Most thinkers seem to place language in a special category, always describing it as symbolic and representative. Perhaps language is always symbolic and representative, but what language means is united inextricably with the facts it describes. When we are speaking of the language of the proposition "The refrigerator is white" we suppose the language has a representative relation to its object. But when we speak of what that language means, the whiteness of the refrigerator in-itself is precisely what the proposition means; that fact of whiteness is the information we are aware of, when we use language to express that information. Thus there is no "representative" or "symbolic" gap between language and its objects when we are speaking of the essence of what language is. A given true proposition and the external fact it conveys are numerically identical, each implying the existence of the other, and at the same time depending on it. Reality in-itself is what I contemplate in contemplating any true proposition with an external subject, and thus reality in-itself is ultimately knowable.

Angelhaunt.net: Because earth's madness is heaven's sense.