I've been whining to Databack that postings arrive with the paragraph
shattered by line-breaks so I get a long line, then a line with two words, then
a
long line, then a one-word line. But it now occurs to me that it may not be
Databack's doing, but, rather, the result of a weakness in my AOL server. So I
now
ask listers to tell me if they receive this posting with solid paragraphs, or
paragraphs shattered by inapt line breaks. (The paragraphs at the very bottom
have line breaks because they were not keyboarded by me, but copied from a
received posting.) Many thanks to those who report back -- Cheerskep
Derek quoted Cheerskep:
"If I utter "doggy" to a shepherd in the remote Andes, no picture of a dog
will arise in his mind. But if 'doggy' "has a meaning", why doesn't that
happen? Because he hasn't been exposed to repeated association of the sound,
"doggy", with real dogs that his parents pointed at when they said the word."
Derek then responded:
"Isn't the answer to this just that a word has meaning only in its relevant
speech community?"
But, for openers, this makes the unwarranted assumption that there exists an
entity, or property, or action that Derek believes he "refers to" when he says
'meaning'.
And he is required to "account for" the fact that this "meaning" of a word
exists only in a "relevant speech community". Derek would say that 'doggy'
"works" in Ohio but not in the Andes because it "has meaning" only where
English is
regularly spoken. But why is that? Why doesn't it "have meaning" in a
non-relevant speech community?
It's reasonable to ask Derek to describe as precisely as he can what he has
in mind when he says, "a word has meaning" -- in particular what he has in mind
with the word 'meaning' and the word 'has'.
In my previous posting, '"Signs", "meanings" and associations', I argued that
the alleged "referent" of 'meaning' is a chimera, there are no such things. I
claimed to "account for" everything we think of as "communication" without
ever having to cite a "meaning". An atheist might say that to assume the
existence of "meanings" is as unwarranted as assuming the existence of souls or
guardian angels.
My argument also "accounts for" why 'doggy' draws a blank in the Andes: The
shepherd was never subjected to the repeated juxtaposition of the utterance
"doggy" and a parent's pointing at a real dog -- thus affecting an association
in
the shepherd's mind. Everything about communication that Derek would require
three entities to explain -- a sign (e.g. an utterance), a meaning, and a
consequently stirred notion -- I'd explain with two: the sign, and the notion
summoned up by the associating mind..
Derek's would-be explanation of why "'Doggy' has meaning only in
English-speaking countries" raises more (unanswerable) questions than it
answers.
I should spend a moment on a usage of 'to mean' and 'meaning' that will
always be with us and is allowable if serviceably restricted.
All instances of the verb form, 'to mean', when ascribed to an entity that is
non-sentient -- that can't have notions, intentions -- are wrong because they
"refer to" a chimerical action, and they are dangerous because they lead us
to assume many other chimerical entities. Inert ink, and even the sound waves
of utterances, do not "mean". They are the occasion for all sorts of wildly
varying notion in our wildly varying minds. (Our minds vary in their receiving
apparatus, their store of remembered notions from which the mind will retrieve
things to associate with a newly received sensation, and the retrieving
apparatus.)
Derek cites public signage that, it seems to him, "have meanings which
sometimes stretch beyond a given speech community - e.g. a basic image of a man
(and
not a woman) on what looks like it could be a toilet door can be found in
lots of countries. Arrows for pointing are also pretty well universal." But
the
communicating effectiveness of these signs can all be accounted for by the
"associating" mechanism. And the associating explanation avoids the absurd
entailment that an inert steel road sign is assiduously "meaning"
twenty-four-seven
regardless of there being no traffic.
The act of "meaning" can, with some safety, be ascribed to a human. We often
say, "He means --" or "I mean --." "John means he is penniless." All that one
has in mind with a sentence like that is this: "John has in mind some
information, a notion, that he wants you to "get". The language he used to
convey that
notion may not have done the job. I'll rephrase his attempt to articulate his
notion."
It's very understandable that we slide from ascribing the act of meaning to a
person to ascribing it to a non-sentient entity. "John's letter means --"
"That road sign means --" "That poem means --" But when we do we're on a
slippery
slope. If we're not careful we soon find ourselves arguing about "the meaning
of" a poem or novel or painting -- and we're not talking about the notion
we're convinced the creator "meant" to convey.
As for signs, it seems to me they also have meanings wit
hin certain
communities - which sometimes stretch beyond a given speech community - e.g.
a basic image of a man (and not a woman) on what looks like it could be a
toilet door can be found in lots of countries. Arrows for pointing are also
pretty well universal.
What puzzles me about signs is why so many academics etc ('semioticians')
place so much importance on them and want to build elaborate theories around
them - especially theories relating to art. Signs seem to me a very
primitive means of communication - in fact that's one of their principal
characteristics. They are a world away from anything to do with art.
**************
Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom000
30000000001)
**************
Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001)
