Kate quotes Michael addressing me: > "You (Cheerskep) regularly claim that the "meaning" is re- > created or evoked in the listener's mind."
In fact I never did claim that "THE meaning" can be "recreated", or even evoked. In truth, I'd like to avoid entirely the use of the word 'meaning' in a philosophical discussion (and certainly "THE meaning"), but I know that's not going to happen in these exchanges, so I'll bend myself to make as clear as I can what notion I have in mind with each usage. In these exchanges, I'll accept 'meaning' to be the word we use to try to indicate a notion (albeit always an IIMT notion). This is distinguished from using the word in the belief that it in some way "refers to" a non-notional entity called "meaning". That, I I'd never do. The notion may be the one in the mind of the "speaker" (utterer, writer, painter, gesturer, etc), or the notion that arises in the mind of someone contemplating an object. (In this context, I'll use 'object' to indicate anything observed. These could be sounds, scriptions, pictures, gestures, etc. They can also be the notion arising when the contemplator addresses "natural" stuff -- dead elm trees, high or low levels in the river-water, the skinned buffaloes the Nineteenth-century Indians found on the plains, the traces of gasoline at a fire-scene.) But keep in mind: It is not the object that I call "meaning" -- it's notion arising in minds of those contemplating those objects. That's what people tend to have in mind when they say, "Well, the meaning of the 'Guernica' for me isb&" -- and then describe as well as they can the notion they're entertaining. The "for me" indicates that he's talking about the notion in his particular mind. Similarly, a speaker may say, "By 'describe' I mean I'll try to find an assemblage of words such that as you listen to them there will arise in your mind notion roughly similar to the notion in my mind -- as I am now trying to describe my notion of 'describe'." In that case the speaker was careful to choose the phrase 'listen to' rather than 'hear' because the notion he wants to stir contains an element of "attending to", actively contemplating. 'Hear' is not wrong, but a reasonable lister might remark we often "hear" things -- like a boring conversation next to us on a train or in a restaurant -- that we "tune out" so effectively that, if we were asked, we couldn't even report what the topic was. Given all this, when Kate writes: "Because the act of evoking meaning in another's mind is imperfect doesn't imply that there is no meaning" it's fairly clear to me she is using 'meaning' differently from me, and, I'd maintain, her usage is too ambiguous. If I fail to evoke "my meaning" in the next guy's mind of course my failure does not imply there is no meaning: For me, "the meaning" is my notion, and it's obvious my notion exists. And the meaning that arises in the other's guy's mind -- however chaotic and unlike my notion -- is the meaning evoked by my garbled assemblage of words: It's the notion that stirs when he contemplates my gibberish. I'd guess Kate believes the utterance itself in some way "has meaning". She writes: "An object often implies a variety of meanings within a culture." Kate does not describe what she has in mind with "implies", or with "An object implies a meaning (within a culture)." She writes, "This claim that the object is meaningless unless someone comes along and thinks it means something and that even then the meaning only resides within the someone's mind b&" I'll pause there to observe that Kate evidently thinks that characterizes my view. I myself would call all objects "meaningless" -- in the sense that there is nothing I would call "meaning" IN any object, even if it's the Statue of Liberty and a contemplator finds all sorts of notion stirring in his mind. I see no reason to believe the fact that an object occasions associations, "meanings", in a contemplator's mind implies that object itself must have something I'd call "meanings" -- any more than, say, the fact that gold occasions joy in a prospector entails there must be joy -- or any other emotion -- in the gold. Or, say, any more than, say, when someone smells smoke and then fright arises in his mind, that must entail there is the feeling of fright in the smoke/fire. But I'm willing to adjust my vocabulary if it will help convey my core notion. If Kate wanted to stipulatively define 'meaningful' as "occasioning notion in a contemplating mind" I could accept that for this discussion. And then, if she wanted, I'd briefly accept this definition: An object is absolutely "meaningless" if it would occasion no notion in anybody, and "meaningless" for a given person if it occasions no notion in him. But that's a hollow acceptance, because I honestly cannot imagine any object that would occasion no notion whatever in anybody. And besides, just as she never describes what she has in mind with "meaning", Kate doesn't for "meaningless" either. Kate continues: "This claim that the object is meaningless. . .doesn't take into account that objects are of themselves cultural, which renders the claim specious since it has not acknowledged the circumstances of the object's making." I still think Kate believes she is attacking my view, but in effect she is doing something the opposite. I've said objects have no "meaning" (again, I'll reserve the word 'meaning' solely to indicate notions in minds). But they do have observable "surfaces" (within which I'd include sounds, smells etc) and that it is the sense data occasioned by observing objects that get processed by the mind in an energetic associating effort to "make sense" of the sense data. I'm ready to call "cultural" all the associated memories that arise when we hear a familiar word, because those associations/memories are acquired in our everyday life with the community -- including seeing the constant juxtaposition of a word with previous sense data. So taking into account this cultural input is an essential part of my position. Thus I'd allow that the "meaning" of a given word for a particular person is the notion that ultimately arises in his mind upon being reading the word. Suppose I say to 'kayak' to you. A tumble of associated images and remembered usages come to your mind. They're far from identical with those that come to my mind, but they're similar enough so that a serviceably similar image arises in your mind. And we both got our images from tv, magazines, books -- all "cultural" input. (I personally can't recall ever having seen a kayak "in person".) All you mean if you talk about the word 'kayak' "having meaning" is the stuff that comes to minds in those communities where 'kayak' has been used lots of times in roughly similar contexts. I presume you'd say it "doesn't have meaning" in those communities where it's not a word in their language. But all you mean when you say that is this: minds in those communities have no accumulated associations with the word. It's the exact same utterance in every community; its "meanings" for people in those communities is solely in the form of arising notion summoned by the associating activity of the mind. Kate says: "It is not the same action when someone from one culture views a natural object and someone from another culture views that same natural object." Well, it's effectively the same initial action -- they both look at it -- but after that the action -- associating in the mind -- is very far from the same. "Nor does the somebody coming along necessarily place the same meaning in the object at different times,large or small." That's right. My view of John Edwards is different from what it was a while ago. I should report that my mind replaces Kate's phrase "place the same meaning in the object" with something like "finds different associations with the object arising". A strict reading of "place a meaning in" suggest all sorts of ideas I can't agree with -- e.g. that a "meaning" somehow resides IN the object after it is "placed" there. "However, within a culture, in a general sense, someones coming along do tend to place the same sort of meaning in objects, whether natural or made, and that meaning placed is modified by the someone's experience,education,whether their feet hurt, etc." I agree with the spirit of this. "This placement of meaning is imperfect only if one
