> Frances replies:
> "Polanyi relies on a kind of relative function in a social
> context for the meaning of things to be made by users, the main
> goal of which is for the group to get knowledge and then mainly
> give it to science. It is reported that for him the only things
> capable or worthy of being conferred with meaning are signs and
> symbols. Signs are causal and natural with their meaning
> somehow emerging from their contiguous or contagious form, but
> that is intuitively taken by users."
>
> To the extent that we, as Polanyi's readers, don't notice that (if this is
> what he does) Polanyi uses the word 'meaning' without ever pausing to
> describe his notion of it, we will be as muddled as he is. We mustn't let him
> just
> assume -- as so many philosophers before and after him have done -- there is
> a
> mind-independent entity he thinks he is "referring to". We need to be given
> reasons for believing in all posited external entities, like angels, the
> soul, fate, gremlins et al.
>
> And if we're being attentive and honest with ourselves, we have to see that
> we have nothing approaching a serviceably clear idea when we read such
> phrases as, "relative function in a social context", "conferred with
> meaning", and
> "their meaning somehow emerging from their contiguous or contagious form,
> but that is intuitively taken by users."
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