OK, so then why not accept that people who share a culture (like contemporary American --European) and subcultures (like English lit-crit or art history) have come to agree on a large number of word/term usages and manage to communicate quite easily without hooking each other with the IS conflation you'rter always alert to.
For instance, if one architect say to another," "That parapet is crumbling" there's little chance of a "misunderstanding between them about the meaning; i.e. the parapet wall, often the most vulnerable wall in a building because it's exposed to weather on three surfaces, is dangerously weathering and needs repair. Laymen might not know what the architect is talking about without further explanation but there's only a tiny chance that the layman woulod still be confused. Why? Because a commonsense logic is probably intuitive --that something exposed to weather on three sides is more vulnerable than something exposed on one side. Cheerskep's arguments don't seem to allow for intuitive or readymade commonsense logic at the root of language. If all language engages a logic of some sort -- like comparing big to small or featuring a part among many, or change versus stasiss, etc. There must be millions of such logic patterns and we may be born with them, lacking only the utterances of our culture to name them and by naming, modifying, and linking, convey them to others of our group. If that is the case, then the slightest utterance of the words -- or wave of the hand --may be sufficient to communicate the desired meaning to another. For example, two young dudes sit on the beach and one notices a very beautiful girl walking in her bikini and says, "Wow!" as he elbows his pal and nods toward the girl" Does the pal get the message? I think so. Even if he said nothing but elbowed his pal, the message is still conveyed. Maybe he does nothing and after the girl has passed, the two pals merely look at each other. The Same message is conveyed. We need to make allowances for the "third party" in communication: that represented by the intuitive logic which is refined, symbolized, and implemented in culture -- like a background template (or, The Gaze) to which we fit our language thoughts as we express them. This is how most "misunderstandings" are eliminated when we talk to one another. To say it ain't so is to ignore real life for an artificial, mechanical, overly intellectualized lie. WC --- On Thu, 7/24/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: "An 'aesthetic experience' MAKES the work 'art'" > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, July 24, 2008, 6:14 PM > In a message dated 7/24/08 6:32:20 PM, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > Cheerskep implies that communication should begin with > a blank slate with > > both the agent communicator and with the receiving > communicator. But of > > course, the agent has all sorts of messy tags on any > word she chooses and so > does > > the receiver. We do rely on cultural norms to guide > communication > > > My position is the other way around. We CAN'T bring a > blank slate to any new > input. We bring a huge bank of associations -- things > learned, experienced, > etc in the past. (Plus a receiving apparatus -- including > our billions of > linking neurons.) Lots of the stuff in the > "culture" around us affect our > associating action -- e.g. what we've read in > dictionaries. > > > > ************** > Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for > FanHouse Fantasy Football today. > > (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)
