From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: "Synonyms"
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:11:43 EDT
Michael writes:
"Lissen up, Cheerskep. Geoff's comment is succinct and on point. That's
pretty much what I tried to say in my long-winded, rococo way."
Okay, I'll lissen up as Geoff writes:
"I think that you undervalue the role of words. There are a dictionary full
of words for our minds to work on. Our minds don't work, don't do (in terms
of
communicating/receiving language) until a word is perceived. Our minds
don't
reach a meaning alone - it takes the stimulus of a particular word."
Let's start with the last sentence first: "Our minds don't reach a meaning
alone - it takes the stimulus of a particular word."
I want to believe we all agree there are no extra-mental "meanings" --
i.e.
there is no mind-independent entity that is "the meaning of" a word.
We can defend the use of the word 'meaning' in the phrase "the meaning for
a
given person" when what we have in mind is the notion that arises in the
receiver's mind when he hears the word.
Of course, the utterer of the word also had in mind a notion, and he groped
for a word he hoped would, when heard, occasion the rise of a serviceably
similar notion in the hearer's mind. If he sees a certain feline, his
associating
mind links up to the word he's always associated with cats like that. The
word
'tiger' comes to his mind.
From which I hope you'll see Geoff's last line is wrong because in fact a
notion often arises in a speaker's or writer's mind before he has "the
words for
it". "Let's see, how shall I say this. . .? Hannah Arendt's assertion
that
"All thinking is in words. Speechless thought cannot exist," is in my
view
abysmally dimwitted.
Writers struggle to choose the best words -- how could that be if their
thoughts are in words? How could you ever mis-speak yourself?
Rock-climbers, chefs,
chess-players, even tennis-players -- they're thinking all the time, just
not
with words.
Effectively the same mistake is articulated in Geoff's earlier line:
"Our minds don't work, don't do (in terms of communicating/receiving
language) until a word is perceived."
Of course they do. Our minds are working constantly. (To forestall
irrelevant
objection, let's say "at least while we are conscious".) Rock-climbers,
cooks, etc. . .
"Ah, but Geoff said 'in terms of communicating/receiving language'!"
Okay if I substitute 'words' for language?
So Geoff says: "Our minds don't communicate words or receive words until a
word is perceived."
I shall keep a straight face and simply say that seems true enough to me.
When we see a fire and want to communicate the notion of "fire" to Dad, we
hunt
around in our mind for the word that has always been associated in our mind
with what we're seeing, and, luckily, by association it comes to us, we
"perceive" it in our mind's inventory of words. "Fire!" we shout.
Dad, luckily, has a similar association in his mind between the word 'fire'
and a notion of flaming stuff. He receives the word. The notion comes to
his
mind. He is not a philosopher, so he doesn't say, "Son, your utterance has
occasioned in me the notion of flaming stuff." He says, "Where?!"
As for Geoff's telling me, "You undervalue the role of words. There are a
dictionary full of words for our minds to work on," I might reply, indeed
there
is more than a dictionary. I myself have invented neologisms, though not as
many as Shakespeare.
As for my undervaluing the role of words, I wonder what makes him think
this?
One of the scripts currently on my website has, on my hard drive, more than
two hundred rewrites of various portions -- not mainly to impose new
characters
or actions, but to get the words "right".
Sorry, Michael, but I feel Geoff either got it too succinct or not succinct
enough.
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