Try as we might to appear objective, empathetic and intelligent, human language limits us to making statements about ourselves. Everything you say is a statement about you. Understanding this limitation is liberating rather than restrictive.
The way we use this language is complicated. Even when decoding the most simple, commonplace statements, our minds have to perform a threefold operation. To make sense of the statement:
“The flower is beautiful.”
- We must understand what each of those words mean
- We must consider the order in which we hear these words. (If you switch the “is” to the beginning of the sentence, the meaning changes drastically.)
- We must consider what speaker actually meant. (Were they merely stating a fact, dropping hints that they want us to give them the flower, being sarcastic… ?)
These three steps are considerations of semantics, syntax and pragmatics respectively. These terms may sound daunting, but we generally perform these steps with ease. (I’m not sure about the order they’re actually performed in, but that’s not important here.) I want to quickly consider the question of linguistic pragmatics in a little more detail.
What a person says is often different to what they mean. Metaphors and rhetorical questions are obvious examples of this, but everyday speech is filled with others. When a person asks “Do you know where the photocopier is?”, we know that they want to find the photocopier. Even though the question is set up to receive a yes/no answer, we understand that either of those words would not be an appropriate response. The questioner could have said “Where is the photocopier?” instead, but this might be perceived as rude. (Perhaps we are less likely to offend the listener by asking the question in a manner that positions them as a gatekeeper of information.) Breaking down the question “Do you know where the photocopier is?” to “Where is the photocopier?” takes us a step closer to the intended meaning of the question, but I believe we can get even closer. While the phrase “Where is the photocopier?” appears as a question, it is actually telling the listener something. “Where is the photocopier?” really means “I want you to tell me where the photocopier is.”
Questions are just a polite way of making statements. Interrogatives, imperatives and exclamations don’t exist as separate metaphysical entities to declaratives. They are just fancy ways of telling the world about ourselves. Many of the words and sentence structures we use serve only to present our intended meaning in a socially appropriate manner.
When I say “Turn it down please.” I mean “I want you to lower the volume of the music.”
When I say “Where is the washroom?”, I mean “I want you to tell me where the toilet is so I can relieve myself.”
When I say “Jesus Christ!”, I mean “I am surprised.”
When I was in college, I travelled to Norway for a conference on the nature of truth. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. After a few hours of listening to old lads talking nonsense, my friends and I left the conference and went to the cinema to see the new Terminator movie. For a long time afterwards, I avoided thinking about truth. It seemed too complicated. About a year ago, I started thinking about it again. I don’t think it’s complicated anymore. I think it’s meaningless.
In light of what I have discussed above, every uttered statement is true.
Truth theories, particularly correspondence ones, assume that human language can accurately describe the world. Pah! The idea of a statement being true or false represents a grossly undeserved faith in the nature of our language.
As I have discussed above, the meaning of many statements is not limited to the words of which they consist. Interrogatives, imperatives and exclamations can be reworded to appear as declaratives. When presented as thus, their truth value is immediately apparent. When I say “What time is it?”, I really mean “I want to know what time it is.”, and I would not be uttering this statement if it was not true. When I say “Give me the book.”, I mean “I want you to give me the book.”, and again, I would not be saying this if it were not true.
But what about lies? I have claimed that all statements are true. Well, if you think about what any specific lie actually means this problem will work itself out. When I say “I have a brand new Mercedes.” what I really mean is, “I want you to believe that I have a brand new Mercedes.” This statement is true, regardless of what I actually own. Mistakes are off the hook too. When I said, “I will be there on Friday night.” but failed to show up, I really meant, “I plan to be there on Friday night.”, and this was true when I said it.
Everything you say is true, but that doesn’t mean that everything you say provides useful information.
In a previous post, I discussed E-Prime, the version of English that entirely omits the verb “to-be”. Perhaps we can imagine a version of English that abolishes all statements that don’t begin with the first person pronoun, along with all questions, orders, and exclamations. This version of English might sound tiresome in comparison to the way we normally speak, but it would be a more honest way of conversing.
This post might seem cynical, but I reckon language deserves it for convincing us that we are smarter than we really are. Language does not really describe the world. It is limited to describing the speaker and their perceptions and beliefs. I don’t believe we should try to formulate every utterance as a declarative beginning with “I”, but I think philosophers and linguists need to pay close attention to the limits of the language we use if they are to make sense of anything.