Michael's logic, presented in this case, works for me. Boris Shoshensky
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "What is happening during an 'a.e.'?" Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2010 22:58:15 -0400 On Apr 2, 2010, at 7:56 PM, William Conger wrote: > Michael is wrong to say my example of a tube of red paint validates his claim that words pre-limit the meanings ascribed to them. A tube of red paint is not the same as the word red. That's not what I said, William. I said that words and other artifacts contain formal properties that persist and convey the meaning to the other person, analogously to the qualities in red paint that the other person perceives as red. The difference is that the red material exists as such, whereas the word or artifact is made purposefully (or chosen purposefully) so that it can manifest formal properties that convey (my word) something to the other person or cause to be evoked or occasion (Cheerskep's terms) a response by the other. I am stuck on the notion that there is a third party in this process of getting an idea from my head to someone else's, and that third party is the means of conveyance--very often words, and for the rest of the time some intentionally made or chosen structure that does the trick. I think it is a crucial demonstration of this "tertium quid" notion that artifacts can convey "meaning" across vast distances and ranges of time that stretch beyond the living cultures of people. We can encounter these old and far-away artifacts and by dint of hard work elicit some of the "meaning" they are still able to convey. Now, indeed, there are many cautions and caveats that guard the careful from overinterpreting or overtranslating these artifacts, but there are also accepted means of verifying the accuracy of the translations, to some stated degree of confidence. Whether or not these ideas only ever exist in human minds, there is some part of the "meaning" that also exists apart from the human mind, namely what someone has shaped or formed into the artifact.
