ID E AL ISAT IO N

A Gordon
2009
I dedicate this treatise to my father who was an academic.

Any comments please email alexgordon26@hotmail.com

INTRODUCTION

For thinking to be communicated, it is dependent on language but if thought becomes conditioned

by language to the extent that it does not represent ideas as they were originally conceived then lan-
guage can get in the way of thinking. Without language it would be difficult to conveys ideas. But
it needs to be seen as independent of thought for it to really help convey ideas; if it starts to condi-
tion ideas in a way that does not reflect the thinker’s original thoughts i.e. if the speaker is influ-
enced by language to the extent that his ideas start to change from what they were when originally
conceived, it is likely that the social dimension of language has had an unwanted effect. If logic
could be extricated from its within language and used to help the thinker, then put back into lin-
guistic thinking, it would be a better vehicle for conveying the ideas of the thinker. There are two
possible ways which I am going to argue can achieve this: meditation and mathematical thinking.

In his later work Wittgenstein thought there couldn’t be any transcendental point of view from
which language could be evaluated because there wasn’t any such non-linguistic perspective from
which to do so. But what if it were possible to by-pass language altogether by thinking mathemat-
ically? A level of logical perception would have been achieved by thinking mathematically not lin-
guistically. Then, it would be possible to attain a level of transcendental idealisation from which to
evaluate the language games. Wittgenstein thought it was impossible to extricate ourselves from
language and even considered mathematical problem solving as a language game, but it has the
advantage of using logic which is less tied to linguistic meaning, and it is the latter which the mind
associates with taken for granted assumptions, which are the things which can cause problems in
everyday life.

WITTGENSTEIN’S ARGUMENTS

In The Tractatus “the picture theory” states that if language is to represent reality, there has to be
something in common between the sentence and the state of affairs. The sentence is like a picture of
reality with the words corresponding to objects in the world by virtue of their arrangement or syn-
tax. The structure of reality can be ascertained from language. The structure of reality has to deter-
mine the structure of language otherwise it is meaningless. The relation words have to each other
mirrors the relation things in the outside world have to one another to the extent that language can
mean anything at all. This mirroring effect is the key to meaning. Given this, it is possible to analyse
the world by analysing language. And vice versa: language's structure can be ascertained from the
structure of the world.

The mere meaningfulness of a sentence determines that it must correspond to a possible state of
affairs in the world, even if the sentence is false - as it must be significant of something in the world.
Wittgenstein thought the surface features of language: its audible and visible aspects, concealed the
logical structure of it. Logical analysis needs to be done on a sentence to get down to what it means,
which is the “elementary sentence” - here the strict picturing relationship between language and
reality is to be found. Therefore the fundamental unit of meaning boils down to the sentence, not

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the word as it is the sentence that is able to picture facts in the world.

Logical constants like “not”, “and”, “or” and “if” operate on elementary statements to link them
(“and”), negate them (“not”), compare them (“or”) and postulate that they state possibilities (“if”).
They are not pictorial, they operate on the pictorial to modify them. From all this it is not a surprise
to learn that Wittgenstein thought the only language that made sense was factual language. But he
was sad that this was the case as it meant that the really important things in life were unsayable: he
thought mystical and religious experiences can not be explained adequately by language.

In his later work, after The Tractatus he abandoned the picture theory in favour of a “use” or “tool”
theory of meaning. Words are tools, sentences are instruments. It was now the conception that, to
get an understanding of language, it was necessary to look at how people used it. It is not necessary
to analyse the structure of language to understand the structure of reality anymore, the former
determines the way we think of the latter. In “Philosophical Investigations” he says we can’t discuss
or think of the world independently of how we use language which is a conceptual apparatus. Now
he says fact-stating discourse is just one type of discourse amongst an indefinite number of other
types of “language games”. Now he draws attention to the multiplicity and variety that can be
found in uses of language as only “family resemblances” exist between the different uses of the
same word. E.g. the word “game” can be used in so many different contexts: ball game, board game
etc; and there is no underlying essential similarity they all share which differentiates the word from
the rest of the words in existence. For example, you could say all games employ rules, but a lot of
things also employ rules; so rule following is not a unique characteristic of games. The context
determines what a word means as well, so you could use the word game saying “it’s just a numbers
game” etc which would depend on the context as to what it meant. In order for a word to have
meaning there does not have to be a single essence which it expresses. Words no longer stand for
things as he earlier thought and they do not get their meanings by being associated with ideas in
mind.

The meaning of words is now entirely determined by the roles given to them or their “use” by the
user. There are no essential foundations to language games, just as there are no such foundations to
games in general. As human activities, games have no transcendental justification either, neither do
verbal discourses. They are social, rule-governed activities, not abstract sets of relationships or
expressions of Platonic forms. Language is now supposed to be a regular, social, rule-governed
human activity.

Wittgenstein thought there was no point of view outside of language games from which to stand
back and appraise the relationship between language and reality. There is no transcendental ascer-
taining of the adequacy of language games because there is not non-linguistic transcendental point
of view from which they can be appraised.

People who have done meditation will know that it involves clearing the mind of all thought and
this enables a transcendental perspective to be reached, going against what Wittgenstein thought
possible. The mind tries to cling on to thoughts in normal everyday life and dwell on them and
relate them to language games, in Wittgenstein’s sense. These thoughts and mental conversations
whiz around the mind quickly which can cause stress if the language games to which they relate are
stressful, whether they be work issues, or other problems. But if, via meditation, one can release the
mind’s from associating these thoughts with the language games which cause stress, by just wit-
nessing them and allowing them to come into and go out of consciousness, then the mind gradual-

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ly slows down and the result is clarity of thinking because thoughts loose their associations with
language games. This is a precondition for a state of consciousness from which it is possible to see
the language games with which we are engaged as just games, and not really powerful enough to
preclude our extrication from them.

It might be possible to use a substitute to enable this type of extrication from engagement with lan-
guage games by doing mathematical problem solving because this disengages the brain from lin-
guistic thinking, where most language is based, and releases its mental powers into the field of the
logic of mathematical meaning. This ensures that the mind can re-engage with linguistic reality, and
claustrophobic discourse can be avoided, as the mind has been allowed to wander into unthreaten-
ing territory, where there is no threat to ontological security from linguistic meanings at all as it is
an entirely mathematical consciousness thereby loosing affinity with language games to the extent
that their power comes from linguistic meanings. From this perspective it is possible to re-engage
with the linguistic frame of reference and broaden the frame of reference or increase the breadth of
discourse.

When a person learns to speak they do so as they learn other social tasks like as telling the time, and
practical tasks like tieing shoe laces etc. As social activities language games can be understood from
outside if a logical frame of reference different from language is adopted; mathematics is a non-lin-
guistic, logical frame of reference and can be used to reach a transcendental perspective from which
to analyse language games which mostly utilise linguistic forms of thinking.

CHAPTER 1

THOUGHT AND ITS RELATION TO LANGUAGE

Idealisation is the process by which objective thinking engenders greater understanding.

The result is a situation of psychological freedom where more than one solution to a problem can
be conceived and the problem of seeing a situation from either one of two diametrically opposing
perspectives can be avoided.

Once an individual understands the workings of a concept, or can explain a system of ideas he can
use language to explain what he means, without unduly grappling with it.

Idealisation here means solving any small logical question, puzzle or equation, mentally in order to
arrive at intuitions that lead to ideas which can be used linguistically. It ensures that logical thought
can be used whilst interpreting and engaging with reality. It has practical applications by virtue of
the energy and intuitions it creates which can illuminate and inform, respectively, the nature of the
outside environment. An admixture of logical thinking alters perception of reality so that it becomes
more inspiring (illumination) to perceive in the first place, and more common-sense (intuitive)
based in the second place.

To illustrate how idealisation causes illumination of reality Descarte’s Cogito ergo sum is the best
example. In "Meditations on First Philosophy" Descartes describes how he was unsure of the exis-
tence of the outside environment: "... if the presentational reality of one of my ideas is so great that
I can be confident that the same degree of reality is not in me either formally or eminently, I can con-
clude that I cannot be the cause of the idea, that another thing must necessarily exist as its cause,

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and consequently that I am not alone in the world. On the other hand if I can find no such idea in
me, I will have no argument at all for the existence of something other than me - for, having dili-
gently searched for another such argument, I have yet to find one." He can be sure that things
outside of himself exist if his idea that they do is so real that he can discount the validity of the idea
that they have no foundation in reality.

To illustrate how idealisation causes common-sense to play a role in interpretation, phenomenolo-

gy is needed to explain how common-sense works in an individual’s consciousness. C. Macann
("Four Phenomenological Philosophers," 1993) in writing about Merleau-Ponty states that transcen-
dental reflection was necessary: ".[to free] essences from the rigid grid of a particular conceptual
framework and so make it possible for them to be re-situated in the experience out of which they
originally arose, a pre-linguistic, pre-objective experience. Originally our existence is ‘so tightly held
in the world’ that we are unable to recognise our involvement for what it is. Idealisation offers us
the lee-way to extract essences from existence but only in order that they should eventually be re-
located in the very element from which they were originally abstracted." In other words idealising
something enables it to be seen as unique and then put back in its place and seen as part of a wider
scheme of things again. This is using common-sense. Idealisation can be achieved by doing man-
ageable mathematical equations, i.e. it can be used to "manufacture" common-sense. The process of
calculating brings about the intuitions necessary to alert that part of the brain that would take real-
ity for granted, if it was not alerted to the fact that reality is not always necessarily ego-syntonic or
congruous with what an individual expects to happen.

Merleau-Ponty states in "The Phenomenology of Perception" (1962): "We are involved in the world
and we do not succeed in extricating ourselves from it in order to achieve consciousness of the
world." It is a good to borrow from logic to manufacture idealisation. This reduces the distance an
individual may be from having a logical perception of the state of affairs which affect him.

The aim is to understand reality in terms of concepts that are personally meaningful and to under-
stand it in terms of its own complexity and difficulty even if this latter understanding is only par-
tial, by borrowing from logic and idealising reality. The way the world is, regardless of what we are
able to understand, can then be held as a constant. When this constant is recognised and is integrat-
ed into an individual’s way of perceiving, the gap between what we know and what exists becomes
immediately apparent.

If a person has an idea first and if the idea was generated by the person’s own logic then the insights
gained as a result of generating logical activity in the person’s brain are not linked to any external
frame of reference, whether scientific or otherwise. If the person borrows from logic and uses the
intuitions generated to perceive reality more positively (with common sense and illumination) then
independence and autonomy have been advanced.

Beliefs that validate individuals’ understandings of situations can, to a certain extent, be modified
by objective thinking, when it is necessary to do so, e.g. when an individual is pessimistic about a
situation. Borrowing from an objective outer criterion such as logic, helps the person to perceive the
logical elements of a situation. Logic thus constitutes a reliable outer criterion to enable a person to
arrive at an informed perception of a situation. This helps correct mistaken ideas and engenders
clarity of perception. The subsequent involvement with the environment is then put within the con-
text of "psychological freedom". If an individual experiences claustrophobia in a situation, it is nec-
essary for him to mentally extricate himself from it temporarily, by thinking objectively, to re-instate

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a feeling of psychological freedom. Therefore, the rationality proposed is one that posits psycholog-
ical freedom as the antithesis to claustrophobia and the method of attaining the former is conscious
effort to achieve objectivity which in turn engenders idealisation.

In order for an individual to be in charge of the words he uses, it is a pre-requisite to get out of any
sense of claustrophobia in relation to the discourse of a situation, whether this is caused by its lin-
guistic character and structure or not. Language is an abstract structure and, as such, is, to some
extent, alien to the individual who uses it. To find a way of using it without being alienated by it, it
is essential to have an idea first and then just use language to convey it. This ensures the idea that
is conveyed is the product of the person, not of the character or structure of the ideas of other peo-
ple or pre-existing ideas which are believed, maybe wrongly, to determine a situation. Logic is not
dependent on experience in so far as it is prior to experience, so it is possible to generate it without
being enmeshed in a situation, extricating oneself mentally from a situation precludes one from
engaging in the situation not from engaging in logic. Then the situation can be re-interpreted and
positively perceived.

LOGIC IN RELATION TO LANGUAGE

In "Philosophical Investigations" Husserl stated that meaning was prior to language. He also stated
that logic presupposes language. In order for it to mean anything to anyone else it does. But logic
can be understood by one person without having to use language to explain to anyone else.
Language conveys and generates logical thinking and ideas in the first place, but its facility as a
conveyor of ideas must not interfere with its capacity to generate ideas.

THE USEFULNESS OF LOGIC

Anthony Kenny in "Wittgenstein" (1973) states: "... logic is, at least in part, the study of rules gov-
erning the safety (the validity, as it is called) of inferences between propositions." He also says:
although he may be ignorant of the facts relating to an argument, as long as the premises are under-
stood to be true, the conclusions based on them can also be assumed to be true. He gives an exam-
ple demonstrating that it would only be necessary for someone to accept the premises that all web-
footed creatures can swim, and that platypuses are web-footed creatures, for them to accept as log-
ical the conclusion that platypuses can swim, even though they may be ignorant of them.

In an everyday situation different people have different interpretations of situations. For an individ-
ual to arrive at an understanding which can be said to belong to that person and not someone else
and "borrowed" from them, it is necessary to evaluate a situation by using faculties that belong to
that individual. It is necessary to ascertain, amongst other things, what the logical elements of a sit-
uation are, i.e. to arrive at an interpretation to some extent logically.

COMPLEXITY AND DIFFICULTY

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Confusion can be reduced if it is possible to see the difference between complexity and difficulty. A
problem may not be very difficult to understand, just complicated to resolve. That is, it might
require the frequent use of short-term memory, e.g. in adding up rows of numbers to find sub-totals
when doing accounts. If the basic logical elements of it are understood (it’s difficulty is resolved),
the only thing left is to sort out the complexity of it - it might just require patience and organisation
rather than the comprehension of difficult concepts or ideas. A problem can be simplified if its dif-
ficulty and complexity are understood as two distinct things - the complexity may be one’s own
confusion about how a problem is or can be expressed or confusion due to the processes required
to solve the problem. In any event the solution is to simplify the process of problem solving by
understanding the problem’s complexity can be reduced if its difficulty is understood first.

For this to happen a state of logical thought needs to exist in the consciousness . To do this it might
be necessary to stop thinking about the complexity of the problem momentarily by extricating one-
self from the situation by thinking about anything else logically, as long as it is different from the
problem, in order to generate some distance and objectivity which can be used to work on the prob-
lem. The logical frame of mind necessary to see it from a new angle is what inspires the perception
of the problem as something solvable.

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO ACQUIRE OBJECTIVITY BY BORROWING FROM

LOGICAL THINKING

The process described above involves mental detachment from the environment in order to rein-
state calm and collected thoughts. It requires, ideally, meditation, or something that helps to get
things in focus from a clear mentality. Because it is not always possible to do meditation during the
day when people are busy, mental exercises to think logically can be substituted for it, and they
specifically concentrate on activating the individual’s thinking faculties. It is important that an indi-
vidual thinks of something that they can solve that is challenging, e.g. a mental arithmetic problem.
It is also important that the person solves it to attain the feeling of achievement. The mind must be
engaged in an activity which creates some space within which to think so that a more enlightened
mentality results. One way to do this is to use a set of numbers that follow a pattern, like the exam-
ple below, but anything that engages the brain to lead to an enlightened mentality can be used.

One technique for generating this sort of problem-solving brain activity is as follows: start with a
big number and a small number 10 times smaller: e.g. 100 x 10 to get the base number (1000); then
increase the big number by one and multiply the last digit of the big number by the small number:
1 x 10 to get the free number (10) and add it to the base number to get 1010 which is a simple way
of multiplying 101 by 10; then minus the 10 to get back to 1000 (the base number). The point is to
always get back to the base number. Next would be 102 x 10 (1020); this time subtract the free num-
ber 20 to get back to the base number 1000. The point is to subtract the product of the last digit of
the big number multiplied by the small number (after adding it on to the base number) to get back
to the base number. If you don’t get back to the base number, there has been an error either in mul-
tiplying, adding or subtracting and doing it again will reveal the error. It is easy to get the right
answer and this is all that is necessary to get a feeling of achievement necessary to setting about log-
ically solving a real life problem.

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IDEALISATION AND ITS RELATION TO RATIONALITY

The word "rationality" in this context is used to mean an individual’s taken-for-granted understand-
ings of the world and consequently his or her ways of interpreting situations. This can be constitut-
ed of religious beliefs, scientific ideas which may also be beliefs, political beliefs or ideas or a mix-
ture of these and/or other ideas.

From the point of view of idealisation, the psychological freedom that it results in happens as the
person generates an interpretation of a situation and realises his own agency. It is psychological
freedom that is "manufactured" by the subject. Idealisation is the manufacturing of an interpretation
by the judicious use of objective thinking leading to a type of rationality that can be used to relate
to others’ interpretations without depending on them, i.e. it leads to autonomy.

BREADTH OF DISCOURSE AS THE ANTIDOTE TO CLAUSTROPHOBIA OF DISCOURSE

If a statement is to be the property of the individual it must be formed by a process, first, of inde-
pendence, possibly from the situation, if necessary, to the extent that the latter may need to be put
aside momentarily whilst the person thinks logically. This is not to alienate the person from the
situation, but to increase its breadth of discourse. The problem with claustrophobia as it relates to
discourse is that reality becomes de-idealised in the sense that it becomes constrained to limited
meanings being derived from the concepts being used. More humanitarian and/or spiritual inferences
can be gleaned from concepts if they are applied to a discourse whose breadth is wider ranging.

THE JURISDICTIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The jurisdiction of consciousness is the extent to which a person’s decisions are based on consider-
ations of personal imperatives and those associated with the wider situation or a mixture of both
factors. The "wider context" is perceived in different ways depending on the person’s psychological
make-up, political, religious views etc. What I advocate is "psychological freedom" i.e. a freedom
from a sense of the weight of the world that existential choices make apparent, instead the "weight"
of the world is converted into a logical construct and as such becomes possible to think about con-
structively more easily. If the mind concentrates on something abstract and logical, objectively; then
focuses on world problems and personal choices, existential reality is manageable: similar to the
way in which a problem is solvable if its difficulty is detached from its complexity (the latter being
irrelevant to understanding a problem’s essence).

Any profit making, public-sector, voluntary or any other sort of organisation is a jurisdiction of con-
sciousness which is bigger than that of the individual – and it benefits from the application of objec-
tivity and logic being pooled in a community of purpose: the profit motive, output of whatever sort
or just consensus of whatever sort.

What characterises an organisation’s activities is its jurisdiction of consciousness. Foucault indicat-

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ed the affinity of language with societally prescribed definitions in the chapter on "The Enunciative
function" and its relation to statements, in "The Archaeology of Knowledge" (1969). A "statement" is
distinguishable from a proposition in so far as it needs the existence of an "associated domain" for
it to operate. This also distinguishes it from a sentence: "far from being the principle of individual-
isation of groups of ‘signifiers’, the statement is that which situates these meaningful units in a space
in which they breed and multiply." "[Statements] are distinct from ... a "context" ["all the situational
or linguistic elements, taken together, that motivate a formulation and determine its meaning."] pre-
cisely in so far as they make it [a context] possible..."

It is helpful to understand how words are used in different senses in different contexts. This
improves the breadth of discourse applying to any one situation. Breadth of discourse prevents
claustrophobia of discourse, where the frame of reference is limited in terms of ways of understand-
ing the meanings of words. Different academic disciplines generally profit from understanding each
other more, usually when they belong to the same general category, e.g. politics and international
relations, or philosophy and economics.

Idealisation at its most helpful engenders a state of awareness which could be called "psychological
freedom" i.e. the ability to see that all the considerations of how to decide what to do can be given
a more flexible status given the ability the person has acquired to consider them objectively. This
takes away the power these considerations can acquire to cause a feeling of claustrophobia in the
mind of the person. It does so by forcing the mind to think of something totally objective and dif-
ferent from whatever constitutes the situation. Then, the person is able to go back to the situation
with an ability to handle thought. They can handle the situation as a result. "Existential freedom"
refers to the necessity to choose. "Psychological freedom" refers to the freedom to consider the choic-
es as objective factors.

CHAPTER 2

THE CONSTITUTIVE FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE

Frames of reference are implicit in all situations and especially where people interact to attain cer-
tain ends. The solution to understanding a frame of reference is to have an understanding of how it
relates to the logic of a situation.

How people relate to the frame of reference of a situation is a result of their interpretation of the
logic of a situation. A bureaucrat for example, can only help a member of the public if his authority
allows him to - he has no option that relies on his own sense of empathy; his options rely on rules.

Different people’s interpretations of the logic of a situation constitute part of the frame of reference.
The logic of the situation needs to be isolated from the frame of reference in order that the logical
elements of the situation may be understood as separate and then re-integrated into the frame of
reference so that an individual’s perception is not perceived as divergent to the extent of being
“deviant”. The grounds for advocating this way of understanding have to do with the propensity
to get caught up in misunderstandings if other people’s definitions are relied on in attempting to
understand what is going on in a situation.

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In Wittgenstein’s "The Blue and Brown Books" (1958) he says "... a word hasn’t got a meaning given
to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investiga-
tion into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it." In "The
Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus" (1922) Wittgenstein alluded to the complexity of language in rela-
tion to how it can be modified into various forms in the last sentence of 4.002: " The silent adjust-
ments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated."

Whereas objectivity leads to a clearer picture, see also (ibid.):

4.01 "The proposition is a picture of reality. The proposition is a model of the reality as we think it
is."

4.026 "The meanings of the simple signs (words) must be explained to us, if we are to understand
them. By means of propositions we explain ourselves."

By thinking objectively a process of IDEALISATION can occur, i.e. an "aerial" or contextualised view
is obtained of a situation, that is an understanding of the logical way in which the situation exists
and must be approached. It requires concentrating on the logical elements of a situation, apart from
its linguistic complexities, in order to better understand the latter - its frame of reference - which is
not to reject the latter but to understand how it came about as an interpretation of the former. The
linguistic elements that relate to a situation can then be seen as one expression of its logical ele-
ments. Understanding that this is the case is possible if thought focuses on logic; that is one way of
achieving objectivity, as given in the big/small number example. This engenders a clear perception
of the situation, it enables the possibility that patterns can be seen in the way people are behaving,
that solutions can be thought about, etc - it is the idealisation of the situation. It is idealised not in
the sense that it is seen through rose-tinted glasses, but in so far as it has been understood by the
individual to mean something that can be articulated independently of the way others involved in
the situation may articulate it and, therefore, with autonomy.

Following autonomy is agency: the understanding of a situation that results from a certain amount
of objective detachment is one that is helpful, ultimately, to a positive frame of reference being built
up around a situation, leading to constructive action.

The variety of different environments and language situations that exist and are created continuous-
ly by interactions, within and on the interstices of pre-existing situations, is impossible to compre-
hensively classify. Foucault’s attempt at a classification of knowledge in "The Archaeology of
Knowledge" via the idea of "discourse" explains that meanings, understandings and relations arise
as a result of the circumstances prevailing before, during and after the creation of the various areas
of knowledge he describes: biology, economics and linguistics.

The term "situation" is a simplification denoting either a pre-existing state of affairs, or one that can
be generated by individuals. In order to simplify, it is helpful to imagine a person, who is not pres-
ent at the time the situation is originally created and has occasion to encounter it. In this case the
danger is that the person will approach a situation and get the wrong idea of what is going on, either
because of a flaw in the way the person interprets what is going on, e.g due to some gap in what
information is perceived, or because of some degree of incongruity between a pre-existing frame of
reference of the situation and the actual logical elements of the situation. The latter are the real caus-

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es of the situation existing in the first place. They can be other people’s actions, words or events, or
events that transpired without human agency, "natural events" - e.g. a flood - or they can be a mix-
ture of both.

The more words and actions are understood in terms of their logical significance, the more the
rationality of the situation can be idealised in relation to meanings that already exist in the frame of
reference, and in relation to meanings that are generated by the situation as it changes.

CHAPTER 3

THE LOGIC OF SITUATIONS

How is it possible for members of the public, to command language to help them negotiate and
interact successfully within situations where there are specific rules, for example where they find
themselves in a social security office after having been made unemployed due, for example, to de-
skilling? They need to understand how the specific situation they are in works - the micro-perspec-
tive. It is possible to do this only if an objective, logical approach is adopted, i.e. one that logically
clarifies what it is necessary to do, so that an objectively rational approach may be adopted whilst
interacting in the situation. The person needs to fill out forms, talk to people, remember things and
write things down like telephone numbers of officials they need to speak to etc.

It is possible to understand the frame of reference of formal or informal situations once they are
understood as amalgamations of different interpretations of logical considerations. An objective
mode of thinking ensures the rational approach necessary for the logical elements of the situation
to be understood. The linguistic frame of reference needs to be recognised as relating to the logical
elements within a situation. It is helpful to understand alternative ways of articulating the logic of
a situation, if, for example, it is necessary to understand the one interpretation that has been decid-
ed upon to represent the situation’s frame of reference, as it may be necessary to understand, for
example, how eligibility to various forms of help are ascertained.

Wittgenstein noted in "Philosophical Investigations" (1953) that the meanings of words can be "... as
diverse as the practices to which they are put although the rules governing language are established
by social practice." For the purposes of achieving idealisation and an objective understanding of sit-
uations, it is the logic of the situation which needs to be focussed on and seen clearly in its own right
and, if necessary, dissociated from any linguistic labelling of it as "good" or "bad" which may arise
from an understanding of the situation which focuses more on attitudes than facts. After a person
has secured a position of logical objectivity in relation to the situation, it can then be engaged with
objectively and the frame of reference applying to the situation will have benefited from this inter-
vention resulting in a more objective rationality.

The reason it is important for westerners to get an insight into situations is because western
societies are more complicated and the communication required is therefore also inherently more
complicated compared with "primitive" societies as Levi-Strauss states when he points out in "The
Savage Mind" (1966) the differences between "cold" (primitive) and "hot" (western) societies. The

11
latter create order by work which produces a lot of internal differences derived from hierarchical
relationships between workers and employers etc. These societies Levi-Strauss considers "wasteful"
in the sense that they create disorder and entropy. "Cold" societies however endow their institutions
with the power to perpetuate sameness, homogeneity and self-regulation by their use of rituals and
the nature of their classificatory systems which resolve differences by synthesising, assimilating and
integrating them as necessary.

Rituals aim to synthesise opposites and bring about order (between the sacred and profane etc),
whereas in "hot" societies the social problems brought about by conflicting interests involved in the
division of labour are the necessary price of the order brought about by mass production and prof-
it - capitalist order. It is not coincidental therefore that Levi-Strauss points out that games in "cold"
societies are more about trying to arrive at an equal score where as in "hot" societies they are about
winning. So the situations which the individual in a "hot" society must interpret can be assumed to
be more complicated than those a "cold" society would present.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

In talking about the functional relationship between language and social structure MAK Halliday
in "Language as Social Semiotic" (1978) differentiates between dialect and register. Dialect is "varia-
tion according to the user" and register is "variation according to the use." He says that "whereas
dialect variation reflects the social order in the special sense of the hierarchy of the social structure,
register variation also reflects the social order but in the special sense of the diversity of social
processes. We are not doing the same things all the time; so we speak now in one register, now in
another. But the total range of the social processes in which any member will typically engage is a
function of the structure of society. We each have our own repertory of social actions, reflecting our
place at the intersection of a whole complex of social hierarchies. There is a division of labour... The
structure of society determines who…will have access to which aspects of the social process - and
hence, to which registers... a particular register tends to have a particular dialect associated with it;
the registers of bureaucracy, for example, demand the ‘standard’ (national) dialect, whereas fishing
and farming demand rural varieties. Hence the dialect comes to symbolise the register... dialect
becomes the means by which a member gains, or is denied, access to certain registers ... linguistic
structure is the realisation of social structure, actively symbolising it in a process of mutual
creativity."

But language can modify the social order: "Variation in language is the symbolic expression of vari-
ation in society... of the two kinds of variation in language, that of dialect expresses the diversity of
social structure, that of register expresses the diversity of social process. The interaction of dialect
and register in language expresses the interaction of structure and process in society."
If the person who is denied access to certain registers could concentrate on objective thinking for its
own sake, e.g. by instituting the process of idealisation, he would instantly gain access to that social
register: that of logical thought.

Halliday goes on to posit a systematic relationship between the different types of grammatical struc-
ture and the semiotic structure of the speech situation. He assumes that a social context, or ‘situa-
tion’, is "... an instantiation of meanings from the social system" which has three variables: a ‘field’
or social process (what is going on), a ‘tenor’ or social relationships (who are taking part) and a
‘mode’ or symbolic mode (how the meanings are exchanged). These three components of social con-

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text equate to three "functional-semantic components" through which they are typically realised,
viz: "experiential" or "ideational," "interpersonal" and "textual." Between the three semantic compo-
nents there is a large degree of independence; thus the ideational component is independent of the
interpersonal component – e.g a logical argument is quite independent of the interpersonal compo-
nent of language (considerations derived from understandings of whom we are speaking to) and
the textual component is independent of the other two. The textual component expresses "...the
relationship of language to the environment"; it is the way in which a person makes relevant to a
situation whatever it is he says.

Logic is an element of the ideational component which is the means through which social process,
a component of social context, is realised. Given that it is largely independent of the other two
semantic components – interpersonal (which realises social relationships) and textual (which realis-
es the part language plays in a situation) – it is valid to consider using logic in a way that is inde-
pendent of the other two considerations, counter-intuitive though this may be. As logic equates to
social process in Halliday’s schema, it therefore also equates to register, which he defines as reflect-
ing the social process; if a person could become more logical he could increase his feeling of social
belonging by virtue of increasing register variation, which is a result of engaging in the social
process of reasoning logically.

Although, when used by someone who is an ancillary worker, for example, and thereby disadvan-
taged by the division of labour, it is not significant of having a professional social status which
requires logical reasoning. The use of logic can help people in these situations improve their rela-
tions with the official environment. A person can engage with that component of the social context
Halliday calls "field" or social process in a way which increases his or her standing in relation to the
other two components of social context: tenor (social relationships) and mode (how meanings are
exchanged). The semantic components to which these two components of social context equate
(interpersonal and textual) will also benefit by virtue of having engaged the intellect. By its nature,
logic, as a semantic component, is largely independent of the other semantic components: interper-
sonal and textual. Therefore it is something a person has control over, whereas the interpersonal is
less a product of one’s invention and the textual is more socially pre-determined, sanctioned and
prescribed.

How what is arrived at by idealisation is integrated into a situation (the textual component) is a
matter which idealisation itself, as a process, helps to clarify. It does so by illuminating the frame of
reference by virtue of being able to apply logical objectivity to it. How others are spoken to (the
interpersonal component) is something that it is possible to address by virtue of having access to
innate feelings, rather than those of inferiority or superiority which would exist if the social process
component of social context determined ideational semantic component. Thus, the process is turned
on its head; the component of social context labelled "social process" by Halliday is determined by
the semantic component he labels "ideational" because of its logical element. Idealisation avoids the
dehumanising effects that can result when social context determines the meanings of situations.

Power is always to a certain extent given. In employment relationships, people’s behaviour is deter-
mined by their economic status; employees must control how they address different people accord-
ing to Halliday’s schema, and how they think; the ideational semantic component that realises that
component of social context called social structure. But for people who find this latter component
oppressive, they do have more control over their thoughts than they do over how they ostensibly
behave, over the ideational semantic component, compared to how they address other people

13
because the former is not immediately apparent to others. Consequently this element of behaviour
does not constitute something that is as easily determined (or controlled, in so far as it cannot so
easily be observed) by the social context as Halliday’s schema suggests.

In the 21st century people feel disenfranchised and alienated from the political process, according
to the Power Report. They have less cause for solidarity along class lines, and their power as citi-
zens has decreased as their power as consumers has increased.

Consequently, although economic exploitation still exists, people do not identify with economic
forms of solidarity such as those of class allegiance. This is a shame as it is a sign of fragmentation
in the social structure; the lack of working class solidarity and class consciousness has been
replaced by issues which are more personal, to do with religion and beliefs about how people
should behave. It is necessary to be able to understand situations for whatever they are significant
of. This is why it is important to have a capacity for objectivity in order that dichotomised and anti-
thetical interpretations of situations are avoided.

Trans-national institutions, e.g. the European Union, now have more power and consequently the
citizen has begun to perceive himself as a small fish in a big pond. This is because the identity is no
longer linked solely with the nation and as the boundaries of the nation state are eroded so too are
the abilities of its citizens to recognise them. Boundaries become trans-national and so meaningless.

NATIONAL REGISTER

Halliday (ibid.) notes that "... the language we speak varies according to the type of situation" and
the "theory of register" attempts to "...uncover the general principles which govern this variation, so
that we can begin to understand what situational factors determine what linguistic features."
"Register" means what sort of things are talked about, by whom and how; it is determined by the
structure of society to a large extent. So just as social class, age, geographical location, sex etc are
major determinants of dialect, they are also major determinants of register.

I believe that Britain has a register which can be compared to that of France. To explain: I read in an
introduction to a book on Karl Marx, that the Renaissance didn’t take root in Britain as much as it
did in Continental Europe. Historical reasons were given for this. Consequently French philosophy
had evolved along more rational lines than the philosophy being produced in Britain. Because the
culture of Britain had developed historically in a more heterogeneous way in terms of its settlers
and rulers, there was never the cultural mind set pre-existing necessary to take on board the con-
cepts necessary to institute a written constitution for example. This is what makes Britain different
in terms of how people talk, in terms of register.

It seems as if the social and cultural processes in Britain determining how people think in situations
(the ideational component of semantics in Halliday’s schema) have more to do with pragmatism
than rationalism, compared to France.

In economics, however, Britain has produced more thinkers that have become household names,
compared to France. I think this is because economics is a more pragmatic subject than philosophy
and it fits more with the English character. In Steven Pressman’s book "Fifty Major Economists"

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(1999), of the first thirty four economists listed, in chronological order, fourteen are English, two are
Irish (Cantillon 1687-1734; and Edgeworth 1845-1926), two are Scottish (David Hume 1711-76; and
Adam Smith 1723-90), and the three French ones are: Quesnay 1694-1774; Walrus 1834-1910; and
Pareto 1848-1923). Amongst the English economists are such names as: Bentham (1748-1832),
Ricardo (1772-1823), J.S. Mill (1806-73), and J.M. Keynes (1883-1946). The contribution Keynes made
towards the sort of thinking that developed the Welfare State should not be underestimated.
Advocating government spending to alleviate depressions is one of the ways in which England has
improved its national register. People care about what they say; they are not so instrumental in deal-
ing with each other. The consequent consideration people in England have for the well being of their
fellow man is a contribution to the quantum of humantarianism in the world.

A lot of people use language in a politicised vernacular in general situations, because they see and
hear it broadcast by the media in the same way. This phenomenon happens everywhere in the world
for different reasons. There have always been border disputes in the history of England and inva-
sions from the Romans, Normans etc, that precluded a homogeneous culture from taking root. As a
result there has been a lack of assimilation of different strands of society into a common normative
framework; instead there has been integration of different cultural influences that have led to
enclaves of differences juxtaposed with each other. This has meant such phenomena as the
North/South divide.

If a stable cultural normative framework had been allowed to develop (i.e. if there hadn’t been so
many disruptions to the developments of settlements in ancient England) this heterogeneous patch-
work of disparate elements, that needs to be cohered by antithetical thinking as crystallised by sen-
sationalism in the media, could have been a homogeneous normative framework cohered by assim-
ilation of new cultural influences into it, which would have engendered more tolerance of ambigu-
ity and less linguistic politicisation. The latter is only a manifestation of antithetical thinking, not a
continuum with various points of a right or wrong scale. As Levi-Strauss pointed out in his distinc-
tion between hot and cold societies, the former create entropy by their friction. A pre-requisite to the
graduation towards a normative framework that is more tolerant of ambiguity within its social
structure is objective thinking.

CHAPTER 4

LOGICAL THINKING AND USING LANGUAGE

Logic is a human construct, but it also has laws of its own. Language is a human construct, but it is
also an abstract system which individuals can find alienating, unless they use language by first hav-
ing something to say. If someone is unemployed and trying to negotiate the benefits system, they
may feel powerless in the face of the need to use the language of bureaucracy, if they feel alienated
by it, for example. The autonomy of language and logic from human involvement, is potentially
alienating. Understanding logic facilitates the use of language because it creates ideas which then
facilitate the use of language.

In the lecture "Notes of a Realist on the Body-Mind Problem" (1972) in the book "All Life is Problem
Solving" by Karl Popper (1999) he puts forward three hypothetical worlds: "world 1," the physical
world; "world 2" the world of conscious human processes (the psychological world); and "world 3,"
the "objective creations of the human mind" in the sense of "products of the human mind."

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World 1 is self-explanatory, it is the physical world. World 2 involves "the psychological thought
processes that occur when we make a statement" and world 3 involves thought as it exists in its own
right, "statements in the logical sense." World 2 is where "subjective thought processes are found"
and world 3 is where "objective thought contents are to be found...not only true statements in them-
selves but also false statements in themselves, as well as problems and arguments." He calls it "...at
least partly autonomous...it has an internal structure that is at least partly independent of world 2."

He adds: "I now claim that scientific theories, which belong to world 3, can have a direct or indirect
effect upon the things of world 1." He uses the example of skyscrapers, being products of theories
of engineering etc which affect the physical world, e.g. skyscrapers create canyons in urban
landscapes, through which winds can get quite strong. Popper believes that although world 3 is a
product of world 2, it has a "... partly autonomous internal structure." He gives the example that
"...natural numbers are man’s work ... a by-product of language ... But the laws of addition and mul-
tiplication...are not a human invention. They are unintended consequences of human invention, and
they were discovered. And the existence of prime numbers...is also a discovery...they did not exist
in world 2 of human consciousness before they were discovered...they immediately existed in world
3 together with the natural numbers; they therefore existed in an autonomous part of world 3 before
they were discovered. After their discovery, they existed both in world 2 ... and in world 3."

Popper would probably agree that world 3 phenomena like the theories that create the skyscrapers,
also affect the psychological world (world 2) of those who work in them, as do the theories that
effect the building of sky-rise blocks by town-planners in cities to house working-class people.
Except the social theories in the latter case were wrong - they were supposed to reduce alienation,
e.g. in the case of Tower Hamlets, but instead, increased it - here walkways outside peoples’ front
doors were supposed to increase neighbours integrating with each other, instead they increased
drug dealers integrating with each other. The validity of the contents of world 3 varies; Popper gives
the example that the proposition "3x4 =13," although wrong, still inhabits world 3. It is conceivable
therefore that some interpretations of situations can be accepted although they are wrong, by virtue
existing in world 3. Rhetoric can be misleading when it purports to be justifiable and respectable on
the grounds of its scientific status.

C.Wright Mills in "The Sociological Imagination" (1959) argued that the Second World War was the
key event which changed sociological studies of the general public at the time he was writing. Due
to the need for social research to be of administrative use in the war, it became less concerned with
the problems of social science and more concerned with being empirical for its own sake. He states
that "... abstracted empiricism seizes upon one juncture in the process of work and allows it to dom-
inate the mind." He goes on: "... historic and psychological consequences [of the Second World War]
frame much of what ... we have studied." He quotes Bernard Berelson in discussing changes in stud-
ies of public opinion: " ‘Put together, these differences [25 years ago versus today [1959]] spell a rev-
olutionary change in the field of public opinion studies: the field has become technical and quanti-
tative, a theoretical, segmentalized, and particularized, ...’modernized’ and ‘group-ized’ - in short,
as a characteristic behavioural science, Americanized. Twenty five years ago and earlier, prominent
writers...learnedly studied public opinion not ‘for itself’ but in broad historical, theoretical and
philosophical terms and wrote treatises. Today, teams of technicians do research projects on specif-
ic subjects and report findings. Twenty years ago the study of public opinion was part of scholar-
ship. Today it is part of science.’ " Mills goes further in saying "[Abstract empiricists] are possessed
by the methodological inhibition...The details, no matter how numerous, do not convince us of any-

16
thing worth having convictions about .. .As a style of social science, abstracted empiricism is not
characterized by any substantive propositions or theories. It is not based upon any new conception
of the nature of society or of man ..."

If it is possible to acquire an objective frame of mind, then a human perspective of a situation is pos-
sible as long as the connection between objective and subjective reality is understood. Rather than
being too objective, it is a pre-requisite to be objective to the extent necessary, and not to let that
threshold be passed; it is reached when idealisation is arrived at, i.e. understanding of the essence
of a problem. If this can transpire, the general problems people are alienated by can be transcend-
ed, or avoided.

CHAPTER 5

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON IDEALISATION

Concepts, when they are first understood, are associated with the situations in which they are com-
prehended; they may also be a product of the situations, in which case they are associated with the
situations they arise out of. That is not to say that concepts cannot be re-understood, i.e. refined in
the understanding of a person because a new situation causes them to appreciate it as having more
applications. Situations mean something to the people in them so they refine their conceptual
understandings when they get into new situations.

If a person goes into a new situation, new concepts can be comprehended, or, more probably, the
meanings a person associates with already understood concepts can be refined. A person may refine
his or her concept of "infinite" after visiting a museum and learning something new about the uni-
verse, for example. People remember more of what they write than what they read, and more of
what they say than what they write - this is a connection activity has with memory.

In order to idealise a situation, logical thinking has to be engaged with which might mean detach-
ing from the situation momentarily, then the situation can be idealised - similar to seeing a geo-
graphical area from the air, in so far as it is seen from a greater perspective. To idealise something
requires understanding for its own sake, first of all, then, once a logical independence is attained, it
requires going on to try to conceptualise a wider meaning. This is possible by the way the mental
exercise necessary to attain logical independence and objectivity engenders insight. The insight that
I call idealisation can be seen as a result of clarification brought about by the process of thinking that
is the natural result of doing a mental exercise to regain a sense of independence of thought, or free-
dom of thought. Once a pattern is recognised in one area of thinking, e.g. in mental arithmetic, it
engenders the ability to see patterns in other areas of understanding.

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