The Problem of Reference

There are two things we have to get straight.

First, are there two things we need to get straight?

And second, what are they?

As regards the first, there certainly do seem to be two things we need to get straight, since we have two questions, and they do not appear to be straight. However, this is a superficial answer, since just because we are presented with the things and they do not appear to be straight does not mean we have to get them straight. Or does it? What would it mean if it were our duty to get these two things straight? What exactly does that say about our relationship to these two things? Do we rely on them or do they rely on us? What would neglecting this duty mean? Of course we should also ask whether we can fulfill this supposed duty. What is the relation of possibility of fulfillment to adopting a duty? Do we only adopt duties we suppose we can fulfill? Or are the highest duties those which cannot reasonably be fulfilled in this life? If we suppose that we can fulfill this duty, establishing the two things and getting them straight, does this mean that we ought to do it? And if we know it to be hopeless to look for the two things, or, perhaps, having found them, impossible to set them straight, should we give up trying? If it is indeed a duty, then a duty to whom? This line of questioning is misleading. The fact presents itself that we have followed the path this far, and it thus appears that the questions demand answers, and that everything be set straight.

Of course to proceed blindly means to neglect addressing any of the questions tied up with the first question, and hence to avoid getting anything ’straight.’ However, the second question leads us deeper into the first one, since it asks what both it and the first question are. And as we saw with the first question, there is a great deal of ambiguity involved in both questions. When the second question asks what it itself is, does it not develop itself in asking this question? It did not have any content until it began to answer. But this content could not have sprung from nothing. Must it not have been somehow contained in the question, ready to emerge? Of course not, because it did not answer itself, I am answering it. I am generating the content of the question. It could reasonably be assumed that most any person could be instructed to write a few pages in response to these two questions and each would write something different. If we are willing to believe the questions can be answered, we must be ready to derive the necessary abstractions from the particular form of the response. Hence, I must strive to remove myself as much as possible from this analysis. In a sense this means I must focus on my own presence in the analysis in order to minimize it. But when I do this a large part of my analysis becomes minimizing my own presence, and hence this approach is retrogressive. When I lose myself in the words, we both benefit. But does that mean we can speak of the ideas guiding themselves? What does it mean when we refer to the flow of an argument, if not the degree to which the arguer is able to remove himself from the argument and make it appear to be self-perpetuating? What is the argument here? We are looking for something by looking around it.