In a message dated 4/4/10 3:22:55 PM, [email protected] writes: > Child 'knows' 'red' not as a name we gave to the certain light waves, but > certain light waves brain senses. > Boris Shoshensky > I think I garner your underlying thoughts here, Boris, and I don't disagree with them. But tolerate me as I say your attempt to articulate the thoughts, your notation, is ambiguous. Assuming I've grasped your thinking, here is how a somewhat trained philosopher might express them:
[Child "knows" red not as a name we gave to the certain light waves, but certain light waves the brain senses.] I immediately grant this is not "perfectly clear" either: One has to be familiar with the philosopher's notation, and his distinction between "use" and "mention". A classic line to convey that distinction goes like this: [Boston has 700,000 people, and 'Boston' has six letters.] I removed your single quotes from ['red'] because you were using the word, not mentioning it. You meant the child "knows" the color-sensation, not the three-letter word. If, using some philosophical notation, you wanted to talk about the word you'd say: [The child knows 'red' as the name of the color of the fire engine.] In fact the more than just somewhat trained philosopher -- like Van Quine -- justifiably adopts even more abstruse notations -- including brackets and half-brackets -- because, for example, the double quotes that I put around your ['knows'] have several possible uses: They can be used simply to indicate a quotation, or they can be used as "scare quotes" -- to cite a word with ambiguous or allegedly confused effect. It's intended to convey something like, "You said it, not I." Moreover, it's something of a rule in correct English to put only single quotes around a quotation if the quotation is within a quotation: [When I heard the teacher say, "Samuel Johnson said 'Nothing succeeds like excess,' I knew the teacher was wrong. Oscar Wilde said that, not Johnson.] Your original line was meant to convey how you use the word 'knows'. A philosopher might balk at that usage, and alter more than just the notation. He might write: [Child is acquainted with red not as a name we gave to the certain light waves, but certain light waves the brain senses.] Or even: [A child is acquainted with red, and understands 'red'.] I grant this hyper-meticulous approach can get tedious quickly.
