Learning Code from Wittgenstein [Part 2]

 

IAN FAIRWEATHER 'EPIPHANY' 1961-1962

On a rare occasion when Wittgenstein mentions ‘society’ there is an illuminating observation about the laws of inference, which suggests something about the governance of society:  

Wittgenstein: “[A] regulation says "All who are taller than five foot six are to join the ... section". A clerk reads out the men's names and heights. Another allots them to such-and-such sections — "N.N. five foot nine." "So N.N. to the ... section." That is inference. Nevertheless the laws of inference can be said to compel us; in the same sense, that is to say, as other laws in human society. The clerk who infers must do it like that; he would be punished if he inferred differently. If you draw different conclusions you do indeed get into conflict, e.g. with society; and also with other practical consequences. And there is even something in saying: he can't think it. One is trying e.g. to say: he can't fill it with personal content; he can't really go along with it — personally, with his intelligence.”

Wittgenstein could be saying that a clerk — maybe an administrative official in an organisation of the state — typically makes uncomplicated inferences out of the bureaucracy’s instructions, and is compelled to do so accurately and correctly in accordance with implicit rules of society or be punished for not doing so. 

A clerk must always do so impersonally by not adding in their own feeling, motive, or intelligence, all of which would personalise the action. Wittgenstein elsewhere writes that an attempt to make sense of generalised structural properties of real world situations requires one to adopt perspectives that are impersonal.

Wittgenstein: “The representation of the world by means of completely generalised propositions might be called the impersonal representation of the world. How does the impersonal representation of the world take place? The proposition is a model of reality as we imagine it.”

That model may seem elementary and lacking complexity, but its generality makes it capable of encompassing truths and representing complex realities. In the science of society we build contradictions into a believable synthesis of knowledge just by being able to distinguish the particular situation from the general conditions. 

Individuals in society are continually learning rules about inference that combine abstractions with their responses to concrete circumstances. We have the cognitive capacity to intuit that certain things we see and hear in certain contexts are quite probably impersonal, whereas other things in the same context are known to be personal. 

Wittgenstein says “something personal” is the opposite of “something universal”. When trying to establish what is true and what is false in a court of law, statements are treated as universal if we are quite certain the person making the statement was “in a position to know”. But a statement like “I know”, absent of that context, is just a personal observation. In deciding whether the evidence is true each of us refers back to the societal meanings we acquired as rules of language. 

Our initial response will be intuitive. Only when we are thinking as society thinks, impersonally, does reason follow. If courts of law act impersonally, the universal statements prevail. 

Wittgenstein: “Even the statement ‘I know that behind this door there is a landing and the stairway down to the ground floor’ only sounds so convincing because everyone takes it for granted that I know it. There is something universal here; not just something personal. In a court of law the mere assurance ‘I know…' on the part of a witness would convince no one. It must be shown that he was in a position to know.”

Wittgenstein: “Given the same evidence, one person can be completely convinced and another not be. We don't on account of this exclude either one from society, as being unaccountable and incapable of judgment. But mightn't a society do precisely this? For words have meaning only in the stream of life. I am sure, sure, that he isn't pretending; but someone else isn't. Can I convince him? And if not — do I say that he can't think? (The conviction could be called "intuitive".) Instinct comes first, reasoning second. Not until there is a language game are there reasons.”

The faculty for intuition necessarily precedes reason. It is futile to pretend the two are separate. Intuition is what produces the decision to apply the rule. Intuition happens in stages. Wittgenstein argues that a rule becomes intuitive only through experience of encountering a rule several times. After that, intuition presumably begins to lose the quality of being intuitive. Intuition gradually acquires the quality of a “decision” to apply the rule. 

Wittgenstein: “It would almost be more correct to say, not that an intuition was needed at every stage, but that a new decision was needed at every stage.”

We could well imagine that the trainee state clerk finally experiences a flash of insight. Intuitive insight about the subliminal rule is converted into something like an impersonal bureaucratic routine, individualised in the mind of the person, while corresponding correctly to a system-impelled routine of state machinery in action. 

The state clerk has always been offered collegial advice, in training or on the job, about how to interpret and respond to the sudden complexities presented to clerks in a seemingly random manner. The trick he performs is to put particular kinds of situation in one of a limited range of general conceptual boxes that correspond to a familiar universal sort of decision: “Look, I always do the same thing”, meaning that in similar circumstances I will make the decision impersonally rather than use my discretion. I follow the rule.

Michael G Heller  ©2021