What is called 'having a wish'?

I want to kiss Penelope. Let us say that I have been harbouring this wish for days. When people mention her name I become distant for a moment or two, preoccupied with contemplating such a kiss. I think of ways that I could meet her. To friends I admit and say things like: ‘I should like to kiss Penelope’. I often look at the little photograph I have of her, sometimes even caressing it.
All such diverse phenomena (and not just ‘mental’ phenomena) are part of what we denote by the single expression “having a wish”. They are what is called ‘having a wish’.
Always consider: What a thing is (called).

Schematism 2....

The core of a scientific theory (in the broadest Quine-Duhemian, Kuhnian, Lakatos-sense) comprises criteria for the identity of certain objects – and that respect it is like a Kantian schema. So we might learn a thing or two about the notion of a scheme from comparing it with that of that of a core.

The core of, say, classical celestial mechanics comprises the general laws of motion and a good bulk of the metaphysics associated with Newton’s Principia. Now, of course, these core assumptions specifies certain parameters pertaining to the movements of celestial objects, but these parameters also has to be connected with celestial objects if it is to be a celestial theory at all. That is, it is only by being connected with a particular planetary system that the theory can serve as a model which allows computation, prediction and the like.
This is the first lesson: a schema is applied to objects.

Now it is also clear that the empirical observations pertaining to the particular planetary system are not mere conjuncts to the axiomatic core of the theory of celestial mechanics – contrary to popular opinion neither Quine nor Duhem ever claimed this either. They are more than this: they are the points at which the theory connects with reality; the Quinian web does touch reality. Only, it must be realized that these points derive their cognitive content from the theory. That is, they don’t form independent cognitive units.
This is the second lesson: the objects subsumed under a schema do not form independent cognitive units.

The empirical observations of particular planetary systems are however not possible solely with reference to the theory of classical celestial mechanics. Astronomical observations, as a minimum, presuppose a theory of optics and of gases in order to determine the propagation of light from the celestial objects to the observer. That is, the theory of classical celestial mechanics is not applied alone.
This is the third lesson: Schemes are necessarily multiple, since they are applied never alone.

It can always be discussed how precise such a conceptual exercise of comparing two concepts is, but in this case I certainly find it helpful.

Schematism...

From time to time, I read the Kant’s section on ‘schematism’ in Critique of Pure Reason. I’m never quite sure I understand it, and I can certainly never quite find myself in tune with its content.

A ’schema’ in its simplest sense is a way of identifying an object in time and space, or simply in inituition, kantianly speaking. If I speak of a ‘white shirt’ and if I’m able to identify white shirts within my experience and within time and space, then I have schematized the concept of a ‘white shirt’. I am able to project it into various contexts, I understand the concept.

But this is exactly my uneasiness with the concept of a ‘schema’. On the one hand, it seems an incredibly important concept if the above relation holds. On the other hand, if the above relation holds, it is hard to see the point in saying ‘I have schematized concept x’ rather than simply saying ‘I understand concept x’. What is the difference between having a schema for something and understanding that concept?

As a philosophical concept it seems either to be incredibly important or incredibly redundant.

What sort of content does the concept of a ‘schema’ carry? How, after all, is it suppose to enlighten, supplement or expand our concept of understanding? As far can I see, the only specific thing Kant says in this connection is that having a schema for a ‘dog’ is like possessing a dim image of a ‘dog’, which I can compare to the objects in my inituition thus identifying them as dogs [Kant’s example, CPR, B 180] – But this is ostensibly wrong, my understanding does not and cannot rest upon comparison with a picture of whatever nature, since this picture would itself have to be schematized in order to apply to real objects of experience. What we need to explain is exactly how my mental imagery and the real objects of my experience can be alike at all, and it’s no explanation to say that are indeed alike. Well, of course, they are. No shit, Sherlock.

PS: I know that I’m not very faithful to Kant’s own problematic here, its placement within the architecture of CPR etc.. I know. But.

An analogy.

Acquiring a concept is like being taken hostage. I must apply like it this, I can only see it like this, I am forced do like this. But in being taken hostage by a concept I immediately suffer from Stockholm syndrome. I identify with the concept. That is to say, I take its commitment upon myself freely. The way in which I am compelled is more alike to being bound by a moral imperative than to being forced by causality. My spontaneity reigns here. I am free to use the concept. But only free to use it like this. Just like a hostage held at gun point is causally free to do whatever he likes, but knows that it will have consequences to do whatever he damn well pleases.

Language conceived descriptively or prescriptively

My previous post(s) touched on the confusion between prescriptive and descriptive in general and within the social sciences. There is, I beleive, a corresponding confusion in our conception of language:

Language, roughly, can be described in two ways:

(1)One in which symbol-types are related to symbols-token as class to member and in which communication fulfills some empirical purpose. Symbols are used and these uses are events, ’symbol-events’. And ’symbol-events’ are categorized according to their symbol. They stand as class to member.

(2) One in which symbol-types are related to symbol-tokens as norms are related to its instances and in which communication is correct or incorrect. Symbols are standards and the use of symbols are actions in accordance with such standards. A use of symbols conforms or complies with a standard. They stand as norm to its instances.

This distinction cuts across linguistic and philosophical-semantic theories. (1) may be called 'the descriptive perspective' and (2) may be called 'the prescriptive perspective'.

Ask yourself: Which side of the distinction am I applying now and when may I be subject to confusing the two sides?

A reason to bother with rules...

Our problems in gaining the right conception of a rule is often connected with the distinction between description and prescription. I believe our problems in determining the modality of a rule stems from exactly these concepts, since our language is lacking in perspicuousness in distinguishing between the two following cases:

A rule considered from the point of view of a model (1) is a description, while a rule considered from point of view of praxis (2) is a prescription. And likewise a rule seems contingent from the point of view of the model, while it is seems necessary from the point of view of praxis.

(An recent example in point is the confusion of the famous philosopher of mind, Daniel Dennett, in ‘Philosophy as Naïve Anthropology’ in Bennett, Dennett, Hacker & Searle, Neuroscience and Philosophy (2008), p.73-97)

Contrast a description of the rules of chess within, say, a science of board games with the ruthless attention we pay the to rules of chess when we actually play chess. Within an empirical science of board games, such a description may be used to predict how people actually play chess, but it’s still only a contingently true description. Conversely, when we actually play chess, the rules are not descriptions, much less contingent, they are necessary prescriptions, they determine directly whether what we do is correct or not. In playing chess we apply the rules of chess, as it were, constitutively. They directly determine what is to count as X.

(In modern physics we call a relation between two physical quantities a ‘constitutive relation’, if the relation holds uniformly and yet doesn’t follow directly from the laws of physics. In grammar, too, we might speak of ‘constitutive rules’, if these establish a necessary relation between two entities, and yet doesn’t follow from the standard laws of logic.)

This distinction is as clear as anything, when it is just presented perspicuously: A linguist compiling a dictionary is making a description of how a word is used, while someone consulting a dictionary is using prescription of how a word is used.

But when we do social science we are so easily confused: We make our study of some field and say that this field conforms to these rules. E.g. that this field conforms to the axioms of microeconomics, that this field conforms to some Foucauldian apparatus, that this field conforms to the ruling ideology of management... But what are we charting by stating these rules? Some set of rules which fit these data OR some set of rules which guide the actors within the field?

A description fits something. A prescription guides someone. And the difference is vital.

Our failure to answer this last question puts the social sciences in an absurd situation. The situation is as absurd as if physicists wondered whether physical laws were descriptions or laws in the juridico-political sense. But it is not like that within physics: The orbital motion of the planets are described by the Keplerian laws, but certainly the planets do not comply with these laws.

Constitutive, regulatory, conventional, law... and human rights.

Let's just start up this blog on Ordinary Language Philosophy (and everything vaguely related) in media res:

Usually the difference between ‘constitutive’ and ‘regulatory’ rules is said to be that constitutive rules define an actions or praxis, while regulatory rule tells us how an action or praxis is performed well. On a semantic level, this is however rather vague. Semantically speaking, a better criterion for differentiating between ‘constitutive’ and ‘regulatory’ rules is that constitutive rules can be construed as analytic, whereas regulatory cannot be construed so. Chess can be specified solely in terms of its constitutive rules and independently of its regulatory rules, while the regulatory rules of chess cannot even specified without reference to its constitutive rules.

A ‘convention’ on the other hand is a (semantically speaking) regulatory rule that is being treated ‘as if’ it is constitutive. The Geneva Convention of human rights and, in fact, the whole of law are conventional in this sense. In terms of analyticity, ‘murder’ is certainly not ‘illegal’, but there is a sense in which law simply defines ‘murder’ as ‘illegal’.
A murder can be specified and defined independently of its illegality just as check-mate can specified independently of the regulatory rules of chess. But from the point of view of law, there is however a sense in which ‘murder’ is ‘illegal’.

The modal status of conventions and constitutive rules are hence ‘alike’, but they are also different. In the case of ‘check-mate’, we are confronted with our ‘inability’ to conceive of it as anything but the kings capture, while in the case ‘murder’ we are confronted with our ‘refusal’ to conceive of it as anything but ‘illegal’.

In the case of the Geneva Convention of Human Rights, this ‘refusal’ is often questioned.

PS: It is funny that, given that I here speak in terms related to analytical philosophy, “treated as if” in relation to law seems incredibly vague, while if I had spoken the tongue of continental philosophy (I am thinking of Agamben on law) such seeming vagueness would be the whole point.