In a message dated 10/19/08 10:16:03 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> As I also wrote, communicating in language is a matter of encoding and > decoding, and there is something between you and me, namely, the words > (those coded things). > In truth, Michael, the words 'encoding' and 'decoding' in philosophic discussion feel to me very like so many academicians' contrivances -- like 'epistemic' and many of Frances's Peircean neologisms -- that obscure rather than illuminate the notions behind them. I have no surety about what you have in mind with those words. The underlying notion behind 'code' is "system". I can imagine an elaborate argument for claiming that words are the result of an intricate transmutation of notion through systematic symbolology into generically different signage etcetera etcetera. But that feels like coronation through polysyllabification. There's already enough intricacy to "mere" associating. When my Daniel was a little boy, and I repeatedly pointed at pigeons and said, "Bird!" he eventually "associated" the sound with all pigeons -- indeed, with all birds. Sound with object. Surely if we agree that "simple" associating "accounts for" the acquisition of language, why talk of "encoding"? (I grant I'm throwing out this cantankereous protest without having thought it through much.) ************** New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002)
