"why not accept that people who share a culture have come to agree on a
large number of word/term usages and manage to communicate quite easily"
William, you say this as though I've been resisting it when in fact I have
again and again asserted that language is very often highly serviceable. I've
done it with many specific examples.
I note that newspapers are generally easy to read because the subjects of
news stories are seldom abstractions. "A crane toppled to the ground on West
65th
street during the noonday rush hour yesterday, killing two pedestrians and
the crane-operator." That's a usefully "concrete" sentence, it calls up loads
of
specific sense data (which are always initially non-abstract), and so it's
serviceably non-obscure.
I pointed out that if, at the dinner table, someone says, "I have a spoon and
knife but no fork," the context restrains our associations, and we get a very
serviceably-clear notion of what the speaker has in mind.
Given all this, it's mildly vexing to see, once a month or so, a lister
assert something like, "Cheerskep's position is that communication is
impossible,
that there's no way we can ever convey to someone else what's on our mind."
William writes:
"Cheerskep's arguments don't seem to allow for intuitive or readymade
commonsense logic at the root of language."
I'll guess that what William calls "commonsense logic", Kate calls merely
commonsense. But as I pointed out, no amount of "common sense" will ensure that
the notion arising in our minds -- when we read Kate's "Can you explain what
you think the boundary between seeing a thing and understanding it is and how
clear that boundary is?" -- will be a replica of the notion in Kate's mind when
she wrote.
I think my description of the associating activity in the mind accounts for
most of what I'll assume William has in mind when he says 'logic'. To me,
'logic' feels a bit too respectful and orderly for the interpreting action of
our
brains. Even Kant's suggestion that the apparatus of the mind itself
necessarily contributes various ordering elements to our sensations, such as
space,
time, and causality, is not a product of "logic". It is merely an ingenious,
assumed, untestable premise devised to try to cope with Hume's skepticism.
Still, I don't deny some reactions and proclivities are instinctual. But the
ones that come to mind don't seem pertinent here. They won't help us take on
board Kate's notion as she wrote that line.
Alas, William insinuates that I'm a liar, one of those who "ignore real life
for an artificial, mechanical, overly intellectualized lie." As usual, I can't
with any surety follow a statement like "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."
I maintain this explanation of "how most "misunderstandings" are eliminated
when we talk to one another" is far more overly intellectualized than my
argument for the role of association. But I wouldn't call it a lie, which I
take to
be a knowing and intentional falsehood. I think it's merely muddled.
**************
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