What does Hans Hermann Hoppe mean?
However, knowing what it means to make a proposition can
definitely not be learned from experience, but rather must be presupposed
of any speaker of a language. What a proposition is cannot
be explained to a speaker by just another statement unless
he already knows how to interpret this as a proposition. And the
same is true with definitions: it would not do to define “definition”
ostensively by pointing to someone who is just pointing out some
definition, because just as in the case in which the word “dog” is
defined by pointing to a dog, an understanding of the meaning
of ostensive definitions must already be presupposed when it
is understood that pointing to a dog, accompanied by the sound
[dog] means that “dog” means dog, so in the case of “definition.”
To
define definition ostensively would be entirely meaningless, unless
one already knew that the particular sound made was supposed to
signify something whose identification should be assisted by pointing,
and how then to identify particular objects as instances of general,
abstract properties. In short, in order to define any term by
convention, a speaker must be assumed to have a priori knowledge
of the real meaning—the real definition—of “definition.”
The knowledge about language, then, that must be considered
a priori in that it must be presupposed of any speaker speaking any
language, is that of how to make real conventions, how to make a
proposition by making a statement (i.e., how to mean something
by saying something) and how to make a real definition and identify
particular instances of general properties. Any denial of this
would be self-refuting, as it would have to be made in a language,
making propositions and using definitions. And as any experience
is conceptual experience, i.e., experience in terms of some language—
and to say that this is not so and mean it would only prove
the point as it would have to be cast in a language, too—by knowing
this to be true of a language a priori, one would also know an
a priori truth about reality: that it is made of particular objects that
have abstract properties, i.e., properties of which it is possible to
find other instances; that any one object either does or does not
have some definite property and so there are facts that can be said
to be the case, true or wrong; and also that it cannot be known a
priori what all the facts are, except that they indeed also must be
facts, i.e., instances of particular abstract properties. And once
again, one does not know all this from experience, as experience is
only what can appear in the forms just described
( Chapter 6 The socialism of social engineering and the foundations of economic analysis.page 132- 134.
I can vaguely see what he’s trying to say but an example of what he’s referring to would clarify it for me.I understand essentially he’s refuting the idea that language is purely empirically understood and that knowledge of language can in some sense be a priori.
I’m embarrassed to be honest that I don’t completely know what he means.This is my fault not his.