Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy by William Irwin & Davis Richard Brian

Author:William Irwin & Davis, Richard Brian [Irwin, William & Davis, Richard Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-05-10T17:00:00+00:00

“What’s the Use of a Book without Pictures or Conversation?”20

“Success in communicating,” Davidson insists, “is what we need to understand before we ask about the nature of meaning or of language.”21 The Alice novels agree. In Wonderland’s opening paragraph, Alice wonders what “use” is “a book without conversation.”22 And we’re told that Alice “was very fond of pretending to be two people” when alone, suggesting that talking or giving “very good advice” to oneself is somehow parasitic upon talking to another.23 Accordingly, when stuck in the Rabbit’s house, Alice “went on, taking first one side and the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether,” at least until “she heard a voice outside. ”24 Unsurprisingly, Alice feels “quite pleased to have got into a conversation” when she meets the Duchess,25 and is equally “pleased to have somebody to talk to” when the Cheshire Cat appears.26 Elsewhere, Alice has “conversations” with a mouse in a river of tears, a hookah -smoking caterpillar, and the Mad Hatter,27 and pretends to converse with a kitten and a house.28

Behind this shared emphasis on communication is hostility to what I’ll call The Solipsist View, according to which the nature of language can be understood by focusing on the individual speaker in isolation from her physical and social environment.29 (A solipsist believes that only she exists.) Davidson’s certainly no fan of the solipsist view, insisting as he does on “the essential social element in linguistic behaviour.”30 “We would not have a language,” he claims, “if there were not others who understood us and whom we understood; and such mutual understanding requires a world shared both causally and conceptually.”31 We come across the solipsist view when the White Knight falls “headlong into a deep ditch”:

“How can you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.

The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where my body happens to be?” he said.

“My mind goes on working all the same. In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things.”32

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