The Constitution and the Air Force

[Sean Wilson]

Mark:
... Ludwig's family-resemblance concept would only be true as you have interpreted it if talking were not modular. We can imagine five senses of the word X, being A, B, C, D, and E. If the senses are the result of a language pattern, they are no longer "clusters."  Let us call the pattern the word's "grammar." Hence there is some cognitive process, P, that is relied upon for senses A and B; and process Q for senses C, D and E. Now instead of a family you have cousins. Or perhaps branches of a tree. To interpret a word properly requires that you first identify which branch of senses is meant when the word is used. (For supreme court purposes, this has to be modified: which branch of senses has semantic integrity ... I see no way around this) 
Aristotle thought that essences would determine what words ultimately refered to; he was wrong -- it is cognition. Early Wittgenstein thought that language stood as a picture in the mind; he was wrong too -- as later Wittgenstein showed. But Ludwig ended up reasoning himself in a knot -- one that he surely would have untangled even later in life had cancer not killed him prematurely. I think the work of cognitive linguists are starting to fuse everything together. Kripke and Wittgenstein are both right.
You have two modules in your brain for language: associative memory and symbol combination. Reliance on these modules produces what I call "pattern talking." People talk in patterns because all of their brains have the same language modules. When a word is spoken, it causes the brain to search for (a) the module; (b) the sense; and (c) referent.  Language games arise when references can be formed using more than one module. Is "army" a picture in the brain? Is it a proper name? Or is it what it DOES.
Is stupidity a behavior?
Is ideology a behavioir?
Is the pope a bachelor?
Is a dolphin a fish?
Is an army that flies no longer an army?
... the sense in which any of these references are "true" is a function of the module by which they are processed. Find the grammar and you have found the key.    
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. 
Penn State University
Website: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/home/
Email discussion group:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheLudwigGroup 
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Conference papers: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/research-agenda/



----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Graber <MGRABER at gvpt.umd.edu>
To: Con Law Prof list <conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 11:07:31 AM
Subject: Re: The Constitution and the Air Force


I confess to being puzzled by certain features of this discussion.  We
do not need to bring in the "Air Force" to raise certain kinds of
interpretive problems.
More generally, I suspect that there was not one essential
characteristic, "A" which distinguished an army from a non-army in 1787.
Rather, a family of traits existed, "A," "B," "C," "D," etc.  Generally
agreement existed that A-C were necessary.  Some people thought "D" also
had to be present, but not E, others thought any institution with trait
"D" was not an army, but that an army required trait "G."  Over time,
trait "C" no longer seems central to an army, while trait "J."  Hence,
to determine whether a constitutional army exists in 2007 we have to do
the same reasoning by analogy we do when considering whether the air
force is part of the armed forces of the United States.

Mark A. Graber


 
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