I wrote: "What I want us to ask is: How come when two people hear the same word, different notion arises in each mind."
Michael responded: "Why when they both hear the same ... *sounds* (not, surely, "words," which are in your head, right?)..." Very right. You may recall my earlier saying "There are no words out there." Again from another venue: ["Excuse me?! Now you're saying words don't exist? I do believe I saw words printed on paper this very day!" "No. You saw ink on paper; you've never seen a "word" in your life. Or heard one. "Foopgoom!" Did you just hear a word? How would you tell? Run to your little dictionary? The latest ones have lots of "new words". But they're only sounds they've at last decided to call "words". What was their "is-ness" before?"] Same with "letters" -- Michael's "electronic shapes" that appear on my computer screen. In fact, what we think we are referring to when we say "letters" have no more existence in the non-notional world than "words" do. They are merely shapes on a screen. We CALL them letters. But in philosophy talk, it seems apt to recognize we are not all at the same educational level. This is not to impugn anyone's intelligence. I have many times been happily surprised to see people who have never taken a philosophy course in their lives but who nevertheless grasp rather recondite philosophic notions almost instantly. I could see that if they had chosen to become full-time academic philosophers, they would have been far better than many tenured folk now out there. So it's an ongoing ticklish job to choose the most accessible language for the audience of the moment. I try not to use words that convey badly misleading assumptions. True, to the extent that the usage 'words' suggests there is some mind-independent category/set of entities that "are words", it's misleading. But I don't expect many people will draw damaging ontological implications at once -- and, theoretically, in the second semester I'd be able to vaccinate them but moving on to the unlovely locutions 'utterances and scriptions'. Of course, I DON'T manage an orderly evolution of vocabulary to parallel a progression of concepts. This is in good part because I've worked out many of the concepts right here on the forum -- clarifying the notion to the extent I can, and devising the best locution I can initially manage to convey those notions. A sharp example of a notion I introduced prematurely is that of the "IIMT" character of all notion. (It's always indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex, and transitory.) "Prematurely" not in the sense that I was exposing my IIMT idea to the light of day before it was developed enough, but that I hadn't prepared my "audience" enough. Back when we were part of the ASA, I could count on their being some professional philosophers who, I could assume, didn't have to be prepared. Frances repeatedly fails to communicate serviceably. I'd say there are two reasons. The first may be that she simply isn't a powerful enough, a clear enough, thinker. The second is that she constantly uses arcane Peircean terminology, with no attempt to elucidate the notion behind it. She recently said that she will explain her notion of 'sign' "in due course". She needs to see that, since "sign" is perhaps the most fundamental concept in her philosophy, it was "due" to be explained back in her chapter-one on this forum. The point of this long disquisition is to try to explain to Michael why he will regularly be able to catch me using scriptions that have already been superseded by earlier postings of mine. Alas, the forum is not one's finished, published book; it's one's notebook, a journal of stumbles, badly in need of editing. Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, a kind of "My Thoughts" notebook, is far less finished than his TRACTATUS -- and far more interesting. And -- a great advantage for the layman -- he relentlessly avoids any technical terms. He was one of a number of good philosophers of the twentieth century who felt that anything worth writing about could be written in "ordinary language". Here's my warning to any laymen thinking of reading philosophy: Beware of the technicians. ************** It's raining cats and dogs -- Come to PawNation, a place where pets rule! (http://www.pawnation.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000008)
