Mind Association

Self-Reference and Meaning in Ordinary Language Author(s): Karl R. Popper Source: Mind, New Series, Vol. 63, No. 250 (Apr., 1954), pp. 162-169 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2251253 . Accessed: 18/10/2011 06:54
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press and Mind Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Mind.

http://www.jstor.org

II.-SELF-REFERENCE IN ORDINARY BY

AND MEANING LANGUAGE

KARL R. POPPER

was: " What did I say betweenyour last two interruptions,Socrates? " Th. I see you have kept your promise,Socrates: you did attend to what I was saying. But did you understand thisquestionof minewhichyou have just quoted ? I thinkI can prove that I understood your question at S. put when you first once. For did I not reply correctly it to me ? Th. That is so. But do you agreethatit was an extraordinary question? it put, Theaetetus, S. No. Admittedly, was not verypolitely out is but this,I am afraid, nothing of the ordinary. No, in I can't see anything extraordinary it. Th. I am sorryif I was rude, Socrates; believe me, I only wanted to be brief,which was of some importanceat
162

S.

Socrates,forwhat I Theaetetus.Now listento me attentively, you is not a littletricky. shall put before as Socrates. I promiseto do my best, Theaetetus, long as you in spare me the details of your achievements the theory of numbers, and speak in a languagewhichI, an ordinary man,can understand. Th. The very next questionwhichI am goingto ask you is one, although expressed in perfectly an extraordinary language. ordinary Thereis no need to warnme: I am all ears. S. Th. What did I say between your last two interruptions, ? Socrates You said: " The very next question which I am going S. one, althoughexpressed to ask you is an extraordinary in perfectly language." ordinary whatI was saying? Th. And did you understand to I did, of course. Your warningreferred a question S. whichyou intended ask me. to [Th. And what was this questionof mineto whichmy warning referred Can you repeatit ? ?
Your question ? Let me see . . . Oh, yes, your question

K. R. POPPER:

SELF-REFERENCE

AND MEANING

163

that stage of our discussion. But I find it interesting that you thinkmy questionto be an ordinary one (apart fromits rudeness); forsome philosophers mightsay that it is an impossible question-at any rate one whichit is impossible understand to properly, since it can have no meaning. ? S. Whyshouldyourquestionhave no meaning it to Th. Because indirectly referred itself. I do not see this. As faras I can see, yourquestiononly S. to referred the warning gave me,just before you you asked it. refer ? to 1Th. And whatdid mywarning Now I see what you mean. Yoiur warningreferred to S. yourquestion, and yourquestionto yourwarning. Th. But you say that you understood both,my warning and my question? I had no troubleat all in understanding what you said. S. a 1Th. This seemsto provethat two things personsays may be in perfectly meaningful spite of the fact that they are to the refers the second indirectly self-referring-that first and the secondto the first. It does seemto proveit. S. ? 1Th. And don't you thinkthat thisis extraordinary To me it does not appear extraordinary.It seemsobvious. S. I do not see whyyou shouldbotherto draw my attention to such a truism. Th. Because it has been denied,at least implicitly, many by philosophers. me. Has it ? You surprise S. who say that a paradox such as Th. I mean the philosophers the Liar (the Megaricversionof the Epimenides)cannot statementcannot arise because a properlyconstructed to refer itself. I know the Epimenidesand the Liar (who says " What S. I am now saying is untrue "); and the solution just to mentioned you does not appear unreasonable me. by 1Th. But it does not solve the paradox, if you admit, as you is did, that indirectself-reference admissible. For, as can be has shown,the Liar or the Epimenides Langford formulatedby using indirect self-reference instead of directself-reference. at S. Please give me thisformulation once. I Th. The next assertion am goingto make is a true one. S. Don't you alwaysspeak the truth?

164

K. R. POPPER

Th. The last assertion made was untrue. I S. So you wish to withdraw ? All right,you may begin it again. Th. You don't seem to realize what my two assertions taken together amounted to. S. Oh, now I see the implications what you weresaying. of You are quite right. It is old Epimenides over again. all Th. I have used indirectself-reference instead of directselfreference;thisis the wholedifference. And thisexample establishes,I believe, that such paradoxes as the Epimenides cannotbe solved by dwelling the impossibility on of self-referring assertions. For even if direct selfreference were impossible,or meaningless, indirectselfreference certainly is quite a commonthing. I may, for example,make the following comment: I am confidently lookingforward a cleverand appropriate to remark from you, Socrates. This expression your confidence, is S. of Theaetetus, highly to flattering me. Th. This provesthat it may easilyoccurthat a comment may be a comment upon another one, and that this othercomment may be a commentupon the first. But once we see that we cannot solve the paradoxes in this way, we shall also see that even directself-reference be permay in of fectly order. In fact,manyexamples non-paradoxical although directly self-referring assertions have been kmown for a long time; both of self-referring statementsof a moreor less empirical statecharacter and of self-referring mentswhosetruthor falsity can be establishedby logical reasoning. Could you producean exampleof a self-referring assertion S. whichis empirically true? S. I could not hear what you were saying, Theaetetus. Please repeat it a littlelouder. My hearingis no longer what it used to be. so thatdearold Socrates Th. I said: " I am nowspeaking softly cannotmake out whatI am saying." I like this example; and I cannot deny that, when you S. were speaking so softly,you were speaking truthfully. of character this truth; for Nor can I denythe empirical it had my ears been younger, would have turnedout an untruth. Th. The truth of my next assertionwill be even logically

Th.

SELF-REFERENCE AND MEANING

165

demonstrable, example by a reductio absurdum, for ad a method mostbelovedof Euclid the Geometrician. I do notknowhim; you don't meanthemanfrom S. Megara, I presume. But I think I know what you mean by a reductio. Will you now state yourtheorem? [Th. What I am now sayingis meaningful. S. to May I attempt proveyourtheorem myself? I assume, forthe purposeof the reductio, truthof thenegation the ofyourtheorem, is, thetruth theassertion: " What that of I am now saying is meaningless." If this assertionis true,it must be, clearly,meaningful. Thus the assumptionthat it is trueis absurd; whichprovesyourtheorem. Th. You have got it, Socrates. You have provedmytheorem, as you insist on calling it. But some philosophers may not believe you. They will say that my utterance(or perhapsthe one you disproved, that is " What I am now sayingis meaningless was paradoxical,and that, since ") it is paradoxical, you can "prove " whateveryou like about it-its truthas wellas its falsity. S. I have shown that the assumptionof the truth of the " " assertion What I am now sayingis meaningless leads to an absurdity. Let them show, by a similar argument, that the assumption its falsity(or of the truthof your of leads to an absurdity theorem) also. When theysucceed in this,thentheymay claim its paradoxicalcharacter or, if you like, its meaninglessness, the meaninglessness and of yourtheorem also. I Th. I agree,Socrates; moreover, am perfectly satisfied that theywillnot succeed-at least as long as by " a meaning" less utterance they mean something like an expression whichis formulated a mannerwhichviolatesthe rules in of grammar, in other words,a badly constructed or expression. S. I am glad that you feelso sure,Theaetetus; but are you not just a littletoo sureof our case ? Th. If you don't mind,I'll postpone answer thisquestion to the fora minuteor two. My reasonis that I shouldlike first to draw yourattention the factthat even if somebody to did show that my theorem, perhapsits negation,was or paradoxical, he would not have thereby succeeded in showingthat it is to be describedas " meaningless in ", the best and most appropriatesense of the word. For in order to succeed he would have to show that, if we assume the truth of my theorem(or the falsityof its

166

K. R. POPPER:

S. Th.

S. Th.

S. Th.

S. Th. S.

negation," What I am now sayingis meaningless an "), absurdityfollows. But, I should be inclined to argue that such a derivation cannot be attemptedby anybody who does not understand meaningof mytheorem the (or of its negation). And I should be inclinedto arguethat, if the meaningof an utterancecan be understood, then the utterancehas a meaning; and again, that, if it has any implications (that is to say, if anything follows from it), it also must have a meaning. This view, at least, seemsto be in accordance with ordinary usage, don't you thinkso ? I do. Of course,I do not wish to say that there may not be other ways of using'the word " meaningful"; for example,some of my fellow-mathematicians suggested have " that we call an assertion" meaningful only if thereis a method which can either provedordisproved. But by it be this wouldhave the consequence that we could not know ofa conjecture suchas Goldbach's-" everyevennumber is the sum of two primes "-whether it is at all meaningful, beforewe have foundout whether thereis a methodby which it is demonstrable refutable; for it may be or and no such methodmay exist. neither, I thinkthiswouldbe botha strange way and an awkward way of usingthe word " meaningful ". And yet,otherpeople have suggested callingan assertion " " meaningful only if we knowhow to findout whether it is true or false; a suggestion whichamountsmore or less to the same. It looks to me verysimilarto yourearliersuggestion. If, however,we mean, by " a meaningful assertionor like an expression which is underquestion" something standableforanybody the knowing language,because it is rules forthe formed accordancewiththe grammatical in formation statementsor questionsin that language, of then,I believe,we can give a correct answerto my next one. questionwhichagain will be a self-referring Let me see whether can answerit. I or Is the questionI am now askingyou meaningful meaningless? It is meaningful, so. For assume my and demonstrably " answerto be false and the answer " It is meaningless to be true. Then a true answerto your questioncan be given. But a questionto whichan answercan be given

SELF-REFERENCE AND MEANING

167

(and, moreover,a true answer) must be meaningful. Therefore,your question was meaningful,quod erat demonstrandum. Th. I wonderwhereyou picked up all this Latin, Socrates. Still, I can findno flaw in your demonstration; it is, afterall, only a versionof your proofof what you call my theorem. S. I think you have disposed of the suggestion that selfor referring assertionsare impossible, meaningless. But I am sad at having to make this admission,for it was such a straightforward to get rid of the paradoxes. way Th. Thereis a simpler way, Socrates. Th. Just avoid them, as nearly everybodydoes, and don't worry about them. S. But is thissufficient Is thissafe ? ? Th. For ordinary and forordinary language purposes is both this sufficient safe. At any rate,you can do nothingelse and in ordinary language,since paradoxes can be constructed in it, and sincetheyare understandable, we have seen. as But could we not legislate,say, that any kind of selfS. should be avoided, reference, whetherdirector indirect, and thereby our purify languagefrom paradoxes? Th. We can do such a thing,of course,but a language for which we legislatein this way is no longerour ordinary language; artificialrules make an artificiallanguage. Has not our discussionshownthat at least indirectselfreference quite an ordinary is thing? a artificial S. But for,say, mathematics, somewhat language wouldbe appropriate, wouldit not ? of Th. It would; and for the construction a language with artificial rules which, if it is properlydone, might be called a " formalised language", we shall take hintsfrom the factthatparadoxes(whichwe wishto avoid) can occur in ordinary language. And you would legislatefor your formalised S. language,I must be strictly suppose,that all self-reference excluded, wouldyou not ? Th. No. We can avoid paradoxeswithout using such drastic measures. Do you call themdrastic? S. Th. They are drasticbecause theywould exclude some very interestinguses of self-reference, especially Goedel's methodof constructing a self-referring statements, method

S.

Whatis it ?

168

K. R. POPPER:

which has most importantapplicationsin my own field morethe of ofinterest, theory numbers. Theyare drastic, over,because we have learned fromTarski that in any language-let us call it " L "-the expressions consistent "true in L " and " false in L " cannot occur,and that withoutexpressionssuch as these, paradoxes such as or paradox of the heterological the Epimenides, Grelling's adjectives, cannot be formulated. This hint turns out of languages to be sufficient the construction formalised for in whichtheseparadoxesare avoided. Who are all these mathematicians Theodorusnever ? S. theirnames. mentioned Th. Barbarians,Socrates. But they are veryable. Goedel's ", so-called " method of arithmetisation more especially, is interesting, from the point of view of our present discussion. one. I am and S. Anotherself-reference, a very ordinary a getting littletoo consciousof thesethings. Th. Goedel's methodis, one mightsay, to translatecertain ones; they assertionsinto arithmetical non-arithmetical code, as it were; and are turned into an arithmetical whichcan be so coded therehappens amongthe assertions to be also the one whichyou have jokinglydescribedas my theorem. To be a little more exact, the assertion code is which can be turned into Goedel's arithmetical statement" This expressionis a wellthe self-referring " formula replaces, formed formula here " well-formed "; ". of course, the word " meaningful I felt, you will a that mytheorem remember, littletoo sureforyourliking cannot be disproved. My reason was, simply, that when turned into the Goedelian code, my theorembecomes a theorem of arithmetic. It is demonstrable, and its negationis refutable. Now if anybodywere to succeed, by a valid argument(perhaps by one similar to yourownproof) disproving theorem-for example, my in by derivingan absurdityfromthe assumptionthat the negation of my theoremis false-then this argument could be used to show the same of the corresponding arithmetical theorem; and since this would at once pro1 ", I feel that vide us with a methodof proving" 0 cannot I have good reasonsforbelieving that my theorem be disproved. Could you explain Goedel's method of coding without S. involvedin technicalities ? getting

SELF-REFERENCE AND MEANING

169

Th. Thereis no need to do this since it has been done before -I do not mean, before now, the supposed dramatic date ofthislittledialogueof ours(whichis about 400 B.C.) but I mean, beforeour dialoguewill ever be concocted by its author,whichwon'ttake place beforeanother2350 yearshave elapsed. I am shocked,Theaetetus,by these latest self-references S. of yours. You talk as if we were actors recitingthe some lines of a play. This is a trickwhich,I am afraid, victims; anyway, their witty, hardly but think playwrights joke I don't. But worsestillthan any such self-referring 'chronology nay, this meaningless is this preposterous, of yours. Seriously,I must draw a line somewhere, Theaetetus,and I am drawingit here. ? lTh. Come,Socrates,who cares about chronology Ideas are timeless. Beware of metaphysics, Theaetetus! S. LondonSchoolof Economics