Brandom1/13/19Notes on “Naming and Saying” (1962)1. “The essay adopts the Tractarian view that configurations of objects are expressed by configurations of names.” [103] Me: But there are lots of facts that are in no sensible sense “configurations of objects.” What sort of “configurations” are involved in all the monadic properties of one object—its shape, color, mass…? Sellars asks this at [110]: “[C]ould there be a configuration of one object? “The Tractatus appreciates that logical compounds are also not to be understood as “configurations of objects” (only elementary, atomic facts are). And it is obliged to dismiss modal and normative claims, propositional attitudes, and to give an unbelievable account of probabilistic claims. WS’s strategy seems to be to treat all nonatomic claims as metalinguistic. He is a metalinguistic expressivist about claims that are not just configurations of objects. In this essay he addresses the monadic properties I asked about to begin with.2. “Two alternatives are considered: The objects in atomic facts are (1) without exception particulars; (2) one or more particulars plus a universal (Gustav Bergmann). On (1) a mode of configuration is always an empirical relation: on (2) it is the logical nexus of ‘exemplification’. It is argued that (1) is both Wittgenstein’s view in the Tractatus and correct. It is also argued that exemplification is a ‘quasi-semantical’ relation, and that it (and universals) are “in the world” only in that broad sense in which the ‘world’ includes linguisticnorms and roles viewed (thus in translating) from the standpoint of a fellow participant.” [103] 3. The crucial passage, of course, is 3.1432, “We must not say: ‘The complex sign “aRb” says “a stands in the relation R to b”’; but we must say, ‘That “a” stands in a certain relation to “b” says that aRb.’” [104]4. “But the crucial point that Wittgenstein is making emerges when we ask ‘What are the parts of the statement in question the relation of which to one another is essential to its character asstatement?’” [104]5. “What Wittgenstein tells us is that while superfcially regarded the statement is a concatenation of the three parts ‘a’, ‘R’ and ‘b’, viewed more profoundly it is a two-termed fact, with ‘R’ coming in to the statement as bringing it about that the expressions ‘a’ and ‘b’ are dyadically related in a certain way, i.e. as bringing it about that the expressions ‘a’ and ‘b’are related as having an ‘R’ between them.” [104]6. “Indeed, he is telling us that it is philosophically clarifying to recognize that instead of expressing the proposition that a is next to b by writing ‘is next to’ between ‘a’ and ‘b’, we could write ‘a’ in some relation to ‘b’ using only these signs. In a perspicuous language this iswhat we would do. Suppose that the Jumblies have such a language. It contains no relation words, but has the same name expressions as our tidied up English. Then we could translate Jumblese into English by making such statements as ‘\s\up 8(a )’ (in Jumblese) means a is next to band be on our way to philosophical clarification.” [105]tmpxv9aqmrt 1 1/13/2019Brandom7. “[T]o represent that certain objects satisfy an n-adic concept, one makes their names satisfy an n-adic concept.” [105]8. The second category of unperspicuous name-like expressions for LW is: “those which would not translate at all into that part of a perspicuous language which is used to make statements about what is or is not the case in the world. It is the latter which are in a special sense without meaning, though not in any ordinary sense meaningless. The ‘objects’ or ‘individuals’ or ‘logical subjects’ they mention are pseudo-objects in that to ‘mention them’ isto call attention to those features of discourse about what is or is not the case in the world which ‘show themselves’, i.e. are present in a perspicuous language not as words, but in the manner in which words are combined. Thus it is perfectly legitimate to say that there are ‘objects’ other than particulars, and to make statements about them. These objects (complexes aside) are not in the world, however, nor do statements about them tell us how things stand in the world.” [106] Notice a) that this is the Tractarian view that Sellarsis going to be developing and arguing for; and b) that properties and facts are among these “pseudo-objects” that are not in the world, statements about which do not tell us how things are in the world”—in the idiom of CDCM, that do not describe the world. Crucially, WS not only takes it that these expression have a metalinguistic expressive role, but also (Where is the argument for this? It seems to function as an assumption.) that therefore they do not also have a descriptive role, at least, cannot also function as descriptions, as opposed to making explicit features of descriptions or describing. 9. “Now one can conceive of a philosopher who agrees with Wittgenstein that in a perspicuous language the fact that two objects stand in a dyadic relation would be represented by making their names stand in a dyadic relation, but who rejects the idea that the only objects or individuals in the world are particulars. Such a philosopher might distinguish, for example,within the fact that a certain sense-datum (supposing there to be such entities) is green, between two objects, a particular of which the name might be ‘a’, and an item which, thoughequally an object or individual, is not a particular. Let us suppose that the name of this objectis ‘green’. Let us say that green is a universal rather than a particular, and that among universals it is a quality rather than a relation. According to this philosopher, the perspicuousway of saying that a is green…is by putting the two names ‘a’ and ‘green’ in some relation, the same relation in which we would put ‘b’ and ‘red’ if we wished to say that b is red. Let ussuppose that we write ‘Green a’. Our previous discussion suggests the question: What would be the unperspicuous way of saying what is said by ‘Green a’, i.e. which would stand to ‘Green a’ as, on Wittgenstein’s view ‘aRb’ stands to, say, ‘\s\up 8(a )’? The philosopher I have in mind proposes the following answer: a exemplifies green.” [107]Here the