> I'll try to use 'ambiguous' for words/works > that occasion multiple > SERVICEABLY CLEAR notions.
Fine, but then whatever is serviceably clear is the hearer's task as much as it the speaker's. If I say something you don't find serviceably clear is it always my failing? No. It might be your failing. > > I'll save 'muddled' for notions -- and acts of > "reasoning" -- that are > disablingly vague, inconsistent, or incomplete. You didn't finish the above sentence. The absent words are "to me". Of course, we have yet to know what it is you say is reaoning. So far, you insist that since words have no meaning and since meaning is fully subjective, then all meaning depends on some truce of notions. But if, therefore, meaning is an explication of reasoning, and meaning is fully subjective, then reasoning is fully subjective. That's the logic of solipsism. Solipsism contradicts the objective reasoning and instead favors fully subjective opinions. > > For example, everyone's notion of "relations" > is muddled. > > Eco's argument for believing there are NO synonyms > between languages is > muddled. One doesn't "prove" a universal by > citing instances consistent with the > universal. One has to prove there are NO instances > INCONSISTENT with the > universal. In language, all merit is the context of words taken together, as in a sentence or phrase, not in the words alone. In the the contextual sense, I agree with Eco. In the dissected sense of words, one by one, I agree with Cheerskep. But Cheerskep's view cannot be put into practice. As soon as we make a sentence or phrase, the pure synonym vanishes. > > So, contrary to William's suggestion that I'm > against ambiguity in "works > of art", I'm not. But I'm always against > muddle, in WOA or anywhere else. Whose muddle? It might be yours. Also, art thrives on contradiction (a form of purposeful muddling) just as crops thrive on decay. > > Note: muddled is muddle, and that's that -- say I > grandly. But a word/work > can be ambiguous for one person and not the next (in the > next, it may occasion > only a single notion), so when we impute ambiguity, we > should state "for whom". Yes, I agree. Some people cannot cope with art ambiguity. They prefer correspondence aesthetics even when it's never possible. My claim is that everything/anything always evokes something else (what it is not; what is absent). > > > (Granted, some words/works will occasion multiple notions > some of which are > serviceably clear, and some of which are muddled. Kate > cites Empson's SEVEN > TYPES OF AMBIGUITY -- which, aptly, is a book that argues > that 'ambiguity' is > ambiguous. Empson's book may also be a bit muddled.) To you? Yes, to you. How can a thing be muddled if a thing has no inherent meaning? Since you make the meaning you make the muddle, too. WC
