Ramberg, B. (1988). Charity and Ideology: The Field Linguist as Social Critic. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review.

(Vol 27 Issue 4).pp. 637-651

Charity and Ideology: The Field Linguist as Social Critic Thesis

Rambergs purpose is to show that there is no conflict between Davidsons theory of linguistic meaning and the ability of a social critic to criticize a particular ideology. The conflict actually arises when we fail to radically interpret and instead rely on linguistic conventions. 1. For Ramberg an ideology is a systematic misrepresentation, distortion or concealment of social reality for the purposes of legitimating social structures that are both the medium and outcome of exploitive practices. (638-639) The social theorist who wants to criticize a particular ideology must show that there is a different possible set of representations and that we can compare these different representations. (639) Davidsons theory of meaning for a language L must give an interpretation of the sentences of L and it must be testable. (639) We develop a theory of meaning through a process of radical interpretation. By making different observations we eventually begin to make hypotheses in the form of T-sentences (s is true-in-L if and only if p). (641) In order for the field linguist to begin to make these kinds of hypotheses she must assume that the speakers of the language are holding the sentences as true when they utter them. This leads to the claim that if we want to know what a speaker is saying we must assume that they are speaking mostly truths. (642) This seems to present an issue for the social critic because if linguistic communication hinges essentially on our treating assertions largely as truenot on their belonging to some linguistic language structure, like a language, given somehow independently on the particular occasion of assertionthen to say that we understand the assertions embedded in a discourse to be systematically false is a contradiction in terms. (645) We do not always use radical interpretation when understanding a language that we already speak. In place of radical interpretation we may use different conventions to establish truth conditions. (647) This process of using conventions can be problematic; however, because the truth conditions established by convention need not coincide with the truth conditions of radical interpretation. When these conditions differ the conventions may conceal the actual truth conditions and hence form an ideology (647) The social critic is the individual that recognizes a tension between the subjects perception of the world, her perception of the conventions of her language, and her perception of the meaning of the description. (648)

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10. The role of the social critic then is to illuminate the ways that the conventions of language fail align with the truth conditions that are established through radical interpretation. Additionally the project of finding new ways of talking is central to the critique of ideology. (649)