A wave of the hand

I want to say something, but I cannot find the words. I get the feeling that I must make a gesture. Then, suddenly as it seems, I know what I mean. The thought pops up. Many of us have had this experience, maybe you too: A gesture stimulates your thinking.

We make gestures for many reasons. I want to draw your attention to something, so I point to it. I want to call a waiter, so I raise my hand. A gesture can be a greeting. I want to show you how a thing looks like and I indicate its shape with my hands. Some gestures have even clear, predetermined meanings. As these examples show, we make gestures or wave our hands with the purpose of communication. But not everybody makes the same gestures in the same situations. Gestures cannot only be different from person to person but also from culture to culture. When a Greek makes the gesture meaning “come here”, a Dutchman will think that the person wants to express that you must go away. People also adapt their gestures to the audience.

Communication is not the only function of gestures. We make them also when talking on the telephone. Blind people make also gestures and the non-blind do when talking with a blind person. One of the non-communicative functions is that they help us learn. It’s obvious that we cannot learn how to drive a car by simply reading a book “how to drive a car”: we have to practice it in order to be able to do it. But in education there is a method called “total physical response” that is based on the idea that you learn a language better by doing what you say. For instance, when you want to learn what the Latin sentence “aperite fenestram” means, it helps that you actually opens a window, since fenestra=window and aperite=open! In other words, doing what you say helps your memory.

But did you know that gestures also help you think? For example – and now I quote from source 1) below – “consider a math problem like 3+2 +8 =___+8. A student might make a ‘v’ shape under the 2 and 3 with their pointer finger and middle finger, as they try to understand the concept of ‘grouping’ – adding adjacent numbers together, a technique that can be used to solve the problem. ... Students who are coached to make the ‘v’ gesture when solving a math problem like 3+2+8 = ___+8 learn how to solve the problem better [than those who aren’t].” This is a simple case of how gesturing helps you think, but generally it is so that gesturing helps to think “in any situation where the person who is speaking and gesturing is also trying to understand – be it remembering details of a past event, or figuring out how to put together an Ikea shelf.” (ibid.) Generally it’s so that waving your hand helps you think, whatever it is about. It’s a new challenge of the idea that body and mind are different substances, so the old idea of Cartesian dualism. Cognitive psychologists call this challenge “embodied cognition”, which “views concepts as bodily representations with bases in perception, action and emotion” (ibid.).

In the Netherlands and many other countries it is so that the accused in a trial is free to move in the sense that he doesn’t have handcuffs and the like that can limit his gestures. This is obvious for, as long as the judgement hasn’t yet been pronounced, he is still legally innocent. In other countries, however, the accused cannot make the gestures and waves he likes, because his hands have been tied. This a psychological disadvantage, because it is humiliating and it makes that other people (including the judges or jury) tend to look down on the accused – consciously or unconsciously –, which may impede a fair trial (in the end the accused may be innocent). Now we see, however, that being chained is also detrimental for the accused in another way. For the simple fact that his hands are chained makes that the accused cannot freely think in the way he would if his hands were free. In other words, in handcuffs (or with his hands tied in another way) the accused cannot freely defend himself. Seen that way, being cuffed in a trial is a violation of human rights. Thoughts are free, but you must be able to have them.

Some websites

1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/with-a-wave-of-the-hand/

2) https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/gestures-are-handy-for-speaking-and-thinking?page=2

3) https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/thinking-with-gestures

or just google “gesture and thinking”.

The origin of language

Paraphrasing Plato, one could say that man is a language speaking biped. But then Diogenes could take a gibbon and say: “Look, by the Way’s man!”, since, unlike other apes, gibbons walk bipedly when they are on the ground. Therefore I should add “without a fur” (see my blogs dated 7 December 2009 and 25 January 2016). Be it as it may, speaking is an essential part of man’s identity. So, when we want to understand man, we should know how language developed, but until now the origin of language is cloaked in mystery. Maybe it always will. Speech organs quickly decompose after death and even more so the brain, where language development takes place; unlike human bones, which can be conserved for millions of years. Therefore, the origin of language is subject to much speculation, even to that extent that already in 1866 the Linguistic Society of Paris didn’t want to receive communications on the theme any longer, since it was only open to serious scientific discussions.

Recently the question has got more attention and nowadays there are several serious hypotheses about the origin of language. Some have such funny names like ding-dong or bow-bow hypothesis. Nevertheless, most are still speculative, so let me look at the facts. The supposed dates of the origin of languages are as diverse as three millions ago, when man begun to make stone tools, till the making of the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. There is something to say for the view that a kind of language existed already millions of years ago. If we accept that the Australopithecus could not communicate on a level that deserves the label “language”, already the first Homo might have been that smart. It is known that then stone tools were often not produced where the flints were found but somewhere else. Say a Homo, 2.5 million years ago, wants to say to a friend: “Hey man, this afternoon I found a heap of flints over there 5 km from here. Let’s collect them tomorrow and bring them here.” Does he need a language in the modern sense for this question? Bees use a kind of language for this. But maybe our Homo can express his thought by means of gestures and some grunts. Or say that this Homo wants to teach his son how to make stones tools. Making stone tools is not as difficult as many people think today, but nonetheless it requires some learning. Does this stone age man tells his son then: “First do this, than do that, etc. Look!” and he shows his son how to make a celt? However, men are wonderful imitators and maybe the son will learn the skill by copying his father’s movements guided by some positive or negative grunts by the latter.

Later Homo managed also to control fire and, moreover, the celts had become a little bit more complicated. Being able to use fire, man could cook his food and as a consequence man’s intestines became shorter through the ages. In other words, surviving and probably also social life had become more complicated. Man was no longer the animal that could live by simply following instincts and intuitions. The first steps on the road to the development of a complicated culture had been taken. Without language modern man cannot transfer the cultural achievements to the next generation. But maybe culture was then still on such a low level that imitation and a few grunts would suffice to pass it on.

Then the modern Homo Sapiens, so “we”, appeared on earth. It was some 200,000 or even 350,000 years ago. Everything changed. It was the start of a rocket evolution – so revolution –. Man’s brain was strikingly bigger than ever before and it continued growing. For what else would we use this extra capacity than for storing a huge quantity of words and a complicated grammar? Anyway, on statistical grounds, a researcher like Johanna Nichols argues that present-day languages must have begun to develop at least 100,000 years ago, otherwise they couldn’t have been as diversified as they are now. It’s a strong argument, I think, supported by other theories that ascribe the origin of modern language to the appearance of the Homo Sapiens. Although I am not an expert, I think that the thesis that places the origin of language as late as 50,000 years ago is not tenable. Making the cave paintings of that time supposes already a high level of culture and communicative abilities and before “we” could have reached that level we probably needed a long way to go.

All this is reasoned guessing. Most likely is that modern language originated with modern man. But previously? My feeling plus my lay understanding of archaeology, palaeontology and linguistics tell me that language in some form – but more advanced than simply grunting – must be older. But what is my opinion worth? What is sure is that now there are some 6-7000 languages in the world. However, probably soon two thirds of these languages will be extinct. What does this mean for man? Culture and language developed hand in hand with each other. What will the consequences be if so many languages will be lost forever? If a language expresses a world view, as I think, the loss of each language is an impoverishment for man. Can and will the existing languages take over what threatens to be lost? Maybe I should change my definition: Man is a cultural biped, as long as s/he speaks. But then maybe Diogenes would take a gibbon and say: “Look, a biped that speaks and has no culture.” Future man?

How to learn twelve languages ... and forget some

People ask me often how I managed to learn so many languages. Here is the story.

Many people think that it’s an effort to learn a new language, and indeed, you need to do something for it. Nonetheless, it’s much easier, if it becomes a part of your daily life. So it’s for a child, so it’s for many living abroad, and so it’s for me: I prefer to read a book in the original language. I watch foreign TV channels, since I want to hear the news at first hand. I like penpalling with people in other countries. I travel often abroad. And I am simply interested in languages. Moreover, if your mother tongue is Dutch, as it is for me, you simply must use foreign languages if you want to learn about the world, and if you want to study. For who knows Dutch?

Already when I went to the primary school, I knew a second language. My parents came from a region, where many people speak Frisian (a language related to English). Although I didn’t live there, my parents had many Frisian speaking friends and acquaintances. So I learned to understand the language fluently. However, I never learned to speak it, for at home we spoke Dutch.

Now it is different, but when I went to the secondary school, you had to learn three foreign languages: English, French, and German. Moreover, after a psychological test, I got the advice to go to a “gymnasium”, a type of school in which languages are important, especially then. Here I learned also Latin and classical Greek. So I knew seven languages when I had finished the gymnasium. This didn’t mean that I spoke them fluently. Not at all! Because the gymnasium prepared for the university, I had learned only to read these languages, for then they thought that this was enough for studying. This was obvious for Latin and Greek, but I hardly knew practical words like potato in the modern languages, which you need, when travelling abroad. Moreover, during my school years I started to correspond with people abroad – which I still do –. This was my first real experience with foreign languages, for my parents didn’t go abroad on holiday.

At the university, where I studied sociology, it was supposed that I could read English etc. However, this was mere theory. My speed in reading sociological texts was at first very low. Gradually it improved and after a year I could fluently read English, and soon also German texts. However, we didn’t get French texts, or it was in translation. Also most professors found this language difficult!

At school languages were not my favourite subjects, for I didn’t like learning words. Moreover, we had to translate boring texts. At the university I learned that a language is more than just an instrument for expressing thoughts: It tells also much about the culture of its native speakers. I found this very interesting! However, my choice for my next language was still practical. I became interested in Latin America and I decided to learn Spanish. I didn’t go to Latin America later, but I have always had pen friends there since then. Now I come often in Spain as well.

Also after the university my interest in languages remained, so when there was a Russian language course on TV, I enrolled immediately. One reason was that I was curious what its special characteristics are. The course lasted two years and it included oral classes with a teacher. Also a pen friend in Latvia helped me by sending textbooks and other books. Of course, I wanted to visit Russia then, and so I made a trip to Moscow. I returned with many Russian books. I looked also for Russian pen friends. I still use Russian. However, reading and writing is one thing; speaking is something else. So when I met a Russian pen friend, we spoke German.

Now I had acquired a taste for language learning. I began to see structures in languages and relations between them. But all languages I had learned were Indo-European languages, which are the same to some extent, despite their differences. So I could understand a bit of other such languages I never learned, like Swedish or Czech. But how would really diferent languages look like? So, I enrolled for a course in Japanese. After two years I had reached such a level that I could continue by self-study. Moreover, I had got a Japanese pen friend. She sent me Japanese newspaper cuttings, magazines for learners of Japanese, books, etc. Later she also wrote her letters in Japanese. However, I never succeeded to write more than a few paragraphs of my letters in Japanese, and till today I can’t read it without a dictionnary. And when I met my pen friend in Japan, we spoke English. Even so, knowing some Japanese was useful, and the holiday was a wonderful experience.

But my lust for languages hadn’t yet been appeased. In the time that I was learning Japanese, the Dutch TV started to broadcast a Chinese course. I enrolled, and I spent many hours on it. I even read the famous tale of King Monkey in Chinese, but in the end I stopped with it. Learning both Japanese and Chinese simultaneously was too much, especially learning the characters, which are different in both languages. Since then I have forgotten gradually what I had learned of Chinese.

However, I kept the desire to learn yet two languages: an easy one, like Danish, and one not belonging to the Indo-European language group. The first desire is still a wish, but again the TV helped me, for it started a new language course: Turkish. The course was not good, but I worked through it. When I had finished it, I had a problem: How to continue? The Netherlands has a big Turkish population, but to my surprise I could not find a higher level course for self study nor other books simple enough for my basic knowledge of Turkish. Because there live no Turkish people in my neighbourhood, I found another solution: watching the Turkish TV, but I just had started or the Turkish TV channel was dropped from my cable TV package. Because my motivation was not very big for Turkish, this meant the end of this study.

Through the years I have learned twelve languages. Some have become rusty, but every day I apply at least six. In the meantime I switched from sociology to philosophy. For philosophy it is so that the more languages you know the better. Then there are my pen friends, foreign TV, and now also the Internet. Language learning has given me also a hobby, for I started to collect reference grammars. Learning languages is not difficult. You must simply like it to use them.

Why it happens

One of the most confusing questions is “why did it happen?” For what do we mean by it? It looks so simple: When we ask why something happened, we ask for its reason. But this begs the question, for when we ask what we mean by a reason, we are back where we started, since a reason is an explanation why something happened. The circle is round.

In his seminal article “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” Donald Davidson states that a reason for an action is made up of an agent’s desire and belief, a view for a long time hold by many action philosophers since then. For instance, I come home and it’s dark. So I flip the switch and turn on the light. In this simple example, my desire is to turn on the light, and my belief is that I can do this by flipping the switch.

At first sight this case seems to illustrate clearly what we mean when we talk about a reason for an action. But does it? Assume that I am making a walk and I have an umbrella with me. Suddenly it starts to rain and I put up my umbrella. Now it’s normal to say that the reason why I put up the umbrella is that it rained. However, what are then the belief and the desire that make that I put up the umbrella? For according to Davidson, we speak of a reason when we have a belief and a desire in mind that explain my action, but the only event in the umbrella case that refers to a reason that made me act is the rain. That it rains is neither a belief nor a desire, for beliefs and desires are mental events and raining is a natural event that takes place outside me. Nevertheless, it’s normal to see rain as a reason to put up an umbrella. The upshot is that the way Davidson fills in the concept of reason cannot be correct. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we don’t have beliefs and desires in the umbrella example. Here my desire is to stay dry and my belief is that I have to put up my umbrella for that (for why else would I have taken it with me?)

In my PhD thesis I argued on grounds I just put forward that the simple idea that a reason for an action are a desire plus a belief cannot be maintained. Instead I presented an alternative view. But my solution applied only to the explanation of human actions (which was the main theme of my thesis). In his recent book From Bacteria to Bach and Back Dennett asks also what “reason” means, but unlike me he uses examples from the natural sciences, which gives it a wider interest, I think (in the sense that it broadens the field of application). So let me follow him now.

(1) “ ‘Why are you handing me your camera?’ asks”, so Dennett, “what are you doing this for?”, while (2) “ ‘Why does ice float?’ asks how come: what is it about the way ice forms that makes it lower density than liquid water?” (p. 38,; italics D.)

According to Dennett “[t]he how come question asks for a process narrative that explains the phenomenon without saying that it is for anything.” (ibid.) An answer to the “for”-question in (2) might be “in order to make ice skating possible”, but such an answer assumes that there would be a being that had designed the laws of nature, which is neither Dennett’s view nor is it mine.

Once we know this the confusion can be easily solved: When we ask why something happened we don’t ask one but two questions. Asking why, can either be asking how something comes about or what it is for – which doesn’t imply, though, that both questions are always relevant in the same situation –. The two questions are not simply different, but they have different temporal directions as well. When we ask how come we look back and ask what happened before the phenomenon to be explained took place. On the other hand, when we ask what the phenomenon to be explained happened for, we ask what came about after the phenomenon occurred. The questions are about the past or about the future. So I put up my umbrella after it had started to rain and next I hope to stay dry.

References

- Donald Davidson, Essays on actions and events, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980; pp. 3-4

- Dennett, Daniel C., From Bacteria to Bach and Back. London: Penguin Books, 2018.

- Weg, Henk bij de, De betekenis van zin voor het begrijpen van handelingen. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1996.

Black swans

When I made a bike ride last Sunday, by chance I passed a garden with two black swans behind a low fence. I felt pity for the swans, for I think that their wings had been clipped in order to prevent that they would escape, but maybe I am wrong. However, here I don’t want to talk about the harm we distress to each other and to animals. For every time I see a black swan I have to think of the great late philosopher Karl R. Popper. He used the example of black swans for showing why you cannot get true scientific theories via inductive reasoning – so by generalizing from data that support your thesis – and for substantiating his falsification principle. This principle says that you must look for data that refute theories and not for data that confirm them. Confirming data can always be found and will not make a theory better. It’s just refutations that lead to scientific progress. So if a theory says that all swans are white and you have seen already ten white swans, then the eleventh white swan you observe will not make your theory better, but a black swan will do.

Actually the black swans example wasn’t Popper’s. Already the Roman poet Juvenal used it, when he characterized something as “a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan”. By this he did not mean that the thing was a “white raven”, so a rarity, but that it was an impossibility, for the Romans assumed that there were only white swans. Till far in the 17th the expression “a black swan” remained equivalent to an impossibility. However, in 1697 the Dutchman Willem de Vlamingh and his co-explorers were the first Europeans to see black swans in Australia. The theory that all swans are white had been refuted.

All this is basic knowledge for epistemologists. What I didn’t know, but what I discovered when I was searching the Internet about this theme, is that there is also a black swan theory, developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Wikipedia says that it “describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.” I let this theory pass, for then I would only copy what I read in the Wikipedia and on other websites. For I had to think of a general phenomenon: What is seen as a discovery is often quite a provincial affair. I have no idea whether there were white swans in Australia in 1697, but let’s assume that they lived there and that the Australian aboriginals knew that there are white swans and that there are black swans. Even then there would be a theory – namely in Europe – that says that there are only white swans and those who adhere to this theory thought that it was true. Maybe it was even thought that is was the Truth. But what was the case is that it was not the Truth, but that it was the truth for them, for there were other people in the world who knew better, but the adherents of the white swan theory hadn’t yet seen them, and for those who knew that there are black swans in this world it was not a problem.

Do you see the point? We (including scientists) consider a statement as true, not because it is true, but because we have the best data that makes it true for us (or because we consider our data as the best). But it is quite well possible that there are other people in the world who have facts at their disposal that would falsify our theory (also for us), but “we” simply don’t know it. That’s why scientists and others (often including “we”) are looking for such facts (according to Popper’s falsification principle). But this shows that truth, including scientific truth, is often a local or provincial view that is adhered to only in an odd corner of humanity, although it’s often a corner with a high status for some (like science). Then a discovery is only what’s known elsewhere but just not in this odd corner.

Does this mean that there are no “real” discoveries? Of course, there are. Often phenomena and facts are discovered that were not known before. By nobody. Nevertheless, even if we take this in account, I would say that truth is a lack of knowledge that things are different (and even can be different, for some). And maybe this is so for Truth as well.