Poetic Touch With the World
Matjaž Potrč
Language as used for communication presupposes the world of community. Language
though is also qualitative, involving phenomenology revealing the world’s relevance.
Truth talk consists of direct and indirect correspondence, whereas poetic talk consists
of correct and failed judgments. Correct poetic judgment with its relevance touches
the world. There is an important intersubjective coordination function of language and
thought. The poetic relevant dimension of language and thought however opposes the
priority of intersubjective communication and directs our attention at the non-vague
world.
Metamorphoses.
“My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a
different kind. You heavenly powers, since you were responsible for those changes, as
for all else, look favorably on my attempts, and spin an unbroken thread of verse,
from the earliest beginnings of the world, down to my own times. / Before there was
any earth or sea, before the canopy of heaven stretched overhead, Nature presented
the same aspect the world over, that to which men have given the name Chaos. This
was a shapeless uncoordinated mass, nothing but a weight of lifeless matter, whose
ill-assorted elements were indiscriminately heaped together in one place. There was
no sun, in those days, to provide the world with light, no crescent moon ever filling
out her horns: the earth was not poised in the enveloping air, balanced there by its
own weight, nor did the sea stretch out its arms along the margins of the shores.
Although the elements of land and air and sea were there, the earth had no firmness,
the water no fluidity, there was no brightness in the sky. Nothing had any lasting
shape, but everything got in the way of everything else: for, within that one body,
cold warred with hot, moist with dry, soft with hard, and light with heavy.” (Ovid,
1977: 29)
0. The riddle of poetic language.
Language seems to be made for transmission of information about the world in
community. Poetic language may be perceived as a deviation from this role: it is
rather qualitative and individualistic, in the sense that it seems to center upon the
phenomenological feelings of a particular person experiencing things. But now:
despite its explicit aim to the contrary, communicative language destined to transmit
the information about the world happens to be vague. On the other hand poetic
language comports a phenomenological qualitative sharpness revealing the relevance
in the world. Yes, the linguistic means often happen to succeed transmitting their
message. But many times this succeeds by the process of productive
misunderstanding and equivocation. Time and again the truth concerning our world
gets revealed through poetic touch.
1. Language as used for communication presupposes the world of community.
Language is used to communicate, to transmit information about the world. This is the
world of community. Judgment presupposes community, but it may also be an
individualistic judgment.
If I say “The cat is on the mat”, I am using a linguistic expression in order to
tell you something, or to transmit you an information about the world. Telling you
something and transmitting the information seems to presuppose the existence of
community. If I tell you something, this may come with various intentions. All of
these seem to rest upon presupposition that you and other people have to be there. At
least you have to be there if I wish my communication to succeed. But this means
that, in kernel, the community has to be there. This goes also for the case where I use
the linguistic expression in order to wake you up or to bore you: still this seems to
presuppose that at least you have to be there. Transmitting the information about how
the world is locally, say that there is a cat on the mat, and that you have to appreciate
this before you start cleaning your shoes on that mat, presupposes that you are there,
for otherwise there does not seem to be any informative charge of language available.
Even judgment seems to presuppose community: if I judge that the cat is on the mat, I
may be inclined into this direction by some information that makes me consider this
angle as something to which my attention was driven by what other people
communicate to me. Judgment may perhaps not be accomplished at all if I would not
live in community. But there is also the possibility that I form an individualistic
judgment: it is then just myself who is responsible for the judgment. This possibility
is given by the judgment that I form and entertain before I engage myself into
behavior that transmits the information about my forming judgment to others. And I
may also form a judgment about what is useful for me to do, but in order to
accomplish the goals of this judgment of mine I may communicate to you my
acceptance of a quite different judgment, or even of an opposite one, with intention
that such a deception in respect to what I believe will bring me some advantage. This
all still presupposes community. But now consider that judgment is more basic than
language: I may transmit or communicate my judgment to you in a linguistic, but also
in different other behavioral manners, say by acting in this or that way without that I
would use any linguistic expressions. This then shows that judgment, thought and
intentionality are more basic than language indeed. Consider now further that
unbeknownst to you you find yourself in a brain in a vat situation. Martians, say, have
kidnapped you during your sleep and with their sophisticated equipment they
produced a perfect brain in a vat. In such a case you will still experience your
communication to someone that the cat is on the mat, you will form various
judgments to this effect, you will presuppose that there is a community to which you
belong. But in your being a brain in a vat case your perceived community world will
be actually your perfectly private world, where judgments are made in a brain in a
vat-ish cosmic solitude. From this transglobal perspective, it then dawns on you that
the community world is possibly embedded into you private judgment world. For at
least you are not in position of finally dismissing the skeptical hypothesis, as far as we
know. Brain in a vat will usually form several commitments in its judgments. But its
communication will be just with transglobal community and not with any real
empirical community. Despite this, brain in a vat will persist in its transglobal
communicative efforts which, from the empirical world presupposition may even
come out as an illusion. Brain in a vat will have transglobal community. But as it will
also be private this will not be certain. And again as a brain in a vat it will certainly
qualitatively experience its transglobal and non-real empirical commitments.
2. Language though is also qualitative, involving the phenomenology revealing the
world’s relevance.
This brings us to the view of metaphysical priority of thought and judgment, and to
the qualitative metaphysical grounding of transglobal judgment. Language does not
seem to be used for communication exclusively. Even if language depends upon
judgment, it also has a specific qualitative transglobal touch as it exemplifies its
conscious or phenomenological quality. In such a case, we have to deal with poetic
language, and this one does not primarily concern some information about the world,
or the information transmitted in community. Poetic language, if it succeeds,
transmits to us the relevance of the world. Besides to its communicative side thus,
language also comports a qualitative side related not so much to what is attempted to
be communicated but with the qualitative phenomenological manner in which things
happen to be communicated. We may say that such a language, poetic one, resonates
with the world, with its rich and dynamical structure. If poetic language succeeds in
its quality, then something relevant about the structure of the world is not so much
transmitted as rather revealed. Then we do not have to do first and foremost with the
world of community but rather with the qualitative phenomenological transglobal
conscious world. There is an inherent risk to the thereby related relevance, but in
successful cases poetic language reveals our position of being in the world. First of
all, this invites us to specify a little bit more in detail the communication related truth
talk, and to oppose it to the qualitative transglobal world related poetic talk. Sharp
phenomenology revealing the world is exposed in transglobal solitude.
3. Truth talk consists of direct and indirect correspondence, whereas poetic talk
consists of correct and failed judgments.
Communicative usage of language has as one of its goals transmitting the information
about the world. My affirmation “The cat is on the mat” will transmit the information
about the world in the case where it will correspond to it. It is true to say that things
are so and so if they indeed are so and so, and it is false to say that things are so and
so in the case they happen to be otherwise1, as common sense would have it. Truth
talk is thus conceived as the correspondence between linguistic items, such as
sentences, and the world. But in fact, as we said, thought may be metaphysically more
fundamental, and affirmability of judgment can then be taken as a correspondence
relatum to the world. It may be said that truth of the affirmation can be measured by
its correspondence to a state of affairs, so that the affirmation “The cat is on the mat”
will correspond to the state of affairs where there is the cat sitting on the mat. This
gives us the truth schema:
(T) “p” is true iff p
where p is short for an arbitrary proposition, say, such as [The cat being on the mat],
where proposition in quotes is a rendering of linguistic or mental affirmation of the
given content, and where the proposition p on the right hand side of the formula refers
to the corresponding state of affairs.
But let us suppose that we have bought a monistic ontology. In this case, we
would not be able to allow for the existence of any ontological parts besides to the
one object or blobject (Potrč, forthcoming a; Horgan-Potrč 2000, 2008). Then the
correspondence indicated by (T) will not be to a state of affairs but to the world, in an
indirect manner. This then accords well with practice of using possible worlds as
semantic models. (Horgan-Potrč, 2006) Thus, the affirmation “The cat is on the mat”
will be true because of how the world is. The “p” will thus refer to the world, but in
an indirect manner. If “p” would correspond to the world directly, it would not be
referring to properties of the world (Potrč, forthcoming b), but to the world directly as
just said. And this is possible just for such affirmations as “There is the world”.
1
This is our free rendition of Aristotle’s truth as correspondence idea.
Besides to this, these affirmations are of rare occurrence, for they require as their
appropriate setting contextually special environment of a philosophical seminar, say.
Be is as it may, we have emphasized the characteristic of truth talk to fulfill
correspondence assignment function as one of its communicative purposes.
Truth talk however is not the only usage that we can make of language and
thought. Truth talk’s main aim is to describe the world. But there are other uses of
language and thought, where beliefs and judgments are formed without the aim of
describing the world. Such is the usage of moral language, in which genuine beliefs
come as basic with their ought-commitments, and not with their descriptively aimed
is-commitments. (Potrč-Strahovnik, forthcoming).
Poetic talk seems to belong to such a non-descriptive category. The same
sentence that was earlier evaluated through the correspondence side in the truth talk,
such as “The cat is on the mat” will fulfill quite a different function when appearing
in a poem. Compare the following sentence:
“His beard and hair were turned into trees, his hands and shoulders were
mountain ridges, and what had been his head was now the mountain top.” (Ovid
1977: 111)
This sentence from the Metamorphoses describing Atlas fate is not meant so much to
describe an independently existing world, and cannot be measured by correspondence
to such a world. Its affirmative power is rather poetic. Such is also the case with the
following sentence:
“In the fierce flames the limbs of Mystery lay consuming with howling and
deep despair.” (Blake 1969: 359)
The poetic valuation is also in order for the following already introduced and
seemingly descriptive sentence as it turns up in the poetic contextual setting:
“The cat is on the mat”.
Can we say for poetic affirmations to be true and false? No, because their main goal
certainly is not in corresponding to some state of affairs or to the world. The main
evaluative point of poetic talk seems rather to be in correctness of the judgment that
they provoke, or in the failing of the intended poetic judgments.
Both my parents were important Slovene writers. My father used to say, as I
remember: “One is a writer or one isn’t”, meaning by this that the literary works
which one reads strike one favorably if they support artistically relevant poetic
judgment, or again sometimes as poetically unsuccessful and not relevant, inciting the
judgment as to their poetic and literary failure.
It thus seems that poetic talk has to be measured and evaluated by judgments
in respect to their literary and artistic correctness, and again by judgments in respect
to their literary and artistic failure. Notice that these will be neither is-judgments, and
even not ought-judgments. They may be called judgments of poetic relevance. In rare
cases as they still happen these judgments form your relation with the world.
4. Correct poetic judgment with its relevance touches the world.
We have said that communicative purpose of language and world tends to be
descriptive, and that it is then measured by the correspondence to the world, via a
truth function. But we have also said that the communicative purpose actually
happens to succeed by other means as the ones that may be measured by the
correspondence. The misunderstanding is productive in communication as well as
understanding. Communicative function of language and its descriptive function also
depend upon the way they approach the world though: mostly through the means of
truth as indirect correspondence, and thus through the reference to the presumed
vague ontic entities.
Poetically correct judgment though touches the world through its inherent
phenomenology, bringing sharpness and non-vagueness along with it. This is not
sharpness in respect to the correspondence to things, but sharpness in experiencing the
world, as just mentioned, in phenomenological manner. Now, phenomenological
manner of judging and assessing the world is transglobal. And this accords well with
the subjective and private experience of the world proper to poetic judgment. On the
other hand, appreciate as well that the world, independent of language and thought, is
non-vague, and thus sharp. This is why the phenomenologically correct poetic
judgment resonates with the sharp world, and does not so much correspond to it. If
the poetically correct judgment proves as relevant to your phenomenological
assessment, then it has touched the world.
5. There is an important intersubjective coordination function of language and
thought. The poetic dimension of language and thought however opposes the priority
of intersubjective communication and directs our attention at the non-vague world.
Intersubjective coordination of language and thought goes together with truth as
correspondence. The poetic dimension of language and thought resists the
correspondence approach, stressing quality and transglobal relevance.
Phenomenology with its sharpness resonates with the non-vague language and
thought independent world. This is in opposition to the vagueness presupposing
communicative function of language.
The poetic dimension of language and thought, in linguistic renderings and in
judgments is solitary: it opposes the priority of the intersubjective and it directs our
attention at the non-vague world. As already mentioned, the poetic relevance and their
judgments are increasingly rare commodities. But they happen to touch us sharply in
their relevance, revealing thereby the constitution of the non-vague world.
6. Some poetic monism questions.
Questions about metaphysical monism and about its relation to perception, quality
and poetic language were formulated by Edmond Wright.2 We will try to address
some of these questions from the perspective of communicative vagueness and of the
poetical qualitative sharpness in respect to the involved world.
Inclusive disjunction approach incites us to see poetic communication as a
relevant attitude: in such a case poetic sharpness disciplines communicative
intentions. This is by the way the manner in which anything relevant happens to be
thought and said.
Edmond Wright is not just a philosopher but also a poet. It is therefore
significant that he agrees with the monistic approach and with reality of one material
object without any parts. By this he exposes poetic touch with the world, transcending
the vague parts world communicative and descriptive engagements.
2
A letter of Edmond Wright to Matjaž Potrč from March 9th, 2008, as related to Potrč
(forthcoming a).
Talking just about the world though would make all communication
impossible, for mostly this one is centered at vague things that defy the relevance of
the world such as encountered in the poetry. People coordinate their linguistic
intentions in order to catch the vague everyday parts. But again, they succeed in this
only through “convenient fiction” unfolding in “talk of singularities, part of wholes”.
The material worldly jell-o is “full of surprises, but we have to talk as if there are
comfortingly firm units, cats and dogs”.
We do not agree with Edmond Wright accusation that we have “neglected the
intersubjectivity that language cannot escape though to get a statement going at all we
have to behave as if words match word in a safe one-one relationship”. We think that
intersubjective impact of language is well presented through its descriptive and
correspondence assigning role. And we do not think that without restrictions “a cat is
actually an imaginary singularity projected onto the stubbornly existing real”.
Recognizing a cat and affirming something true about the cat involves the
correspondence to the world, in an indirect manner though. Poetic talk involving cats
belongs to a different dimension of correct or failed judgment aesthetic evaluation.
“Objectivity is not existence.” To this we remark that the there seems to be an
objective non-vague world. Existence though tends to be ascribed to the sharp
properties of the world as if to something vague.
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