Cheerskep, The problem I keep trying to identify is not with the conception of mind, but with the conception of language and semantics (content) you keep appealing to. Your example of your son operates according to an Augustinian model of language and language acquisition (the very same one that begins Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations). As Wittgenstein shows, however, that model of language neither captures what we do when we use language, nor the meanings involved, nor even the process of language acquisition. Your intuitions implicit in the example turn out to lead you astray.
So, I suggest that we forget the brain for the moment, and state precisely what we mean by 'meaning.' From what I gather, you have a roughly Humean story to tell about impressions and ideas, but such a story has historically treated meaning as an 'image in my head,' a representation with definitive properties. Now, this Humean has all kinds of problems., You are liable, for example, to receive a Kantian attack: impressions etc still require a cognitive structure to delineate impressions coherently so as to form ideas. Without native concepts (and hence native semantics/meaning), there can be no ideas, since there's no way of sorting the impressions (think of Borges' Funes the Memorious: you may be able to name each individual impression, but that neither gives you thought, nor meaning) Outside of a few people in the philosophy of mind (Ruth Millikan and Fodor, maybe) I can think of no one who would accept this view. So why would I accept it here, especially given that there are much more nuanced and powerful accounts out there? Remember also that Okham was a monimalist, which emant that once you conceive an abstraction, it exists. So I very much doubt that he would agree with you about the nonexistence of abstractions. After all, Okham's razor = do not multiply entities beyond necessity. Some abstractions are, I am afraid, necessary. And, since it has probably become a catchphrase of mine by now, I should reiterate: There is no explicit, valid, or sound argument here. On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 7:02 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > When Imago says, "I simply don't see how words can have associations but > not meanings," it's possible my failure to convince him of this is a result > of > the inefficiency of "language" (or my inefficiency with the use of > language.) It can be extremely serviceable in the kitchen, but often not > when we > discuss philosophical topics. > > I tried to convey my point by citing the way my son became serviceably > efficient in the use of the word 'horsey', and in doing it I used the words > 'associate' and 'association'. I'd repeatedly point at a (physical) horse > in the > street and say, "Horsey!" and, I said, my son soon came to "associate" the > sound "horsey" with the sight of the horse. (By 'sight' I have in mind the > conscious image in his mind as he looks at the physical horse.) > > But instead of "associate" perhaps I should have said "connects", or, > perhaps better, "links". I think of the brain as a lump of nodes and links. > It is > the nature of the brain that it (among other things) "links" nodes and > consequent bits of consciousness. Repeated juxtaposition of a sound and a > sight > tends to produce in normal brains such a "link". In time I could show my > son > a photo of a horse, and he'd say, "Horsey". > > When we use the word 'reminds', the linking action is usually stirred not > by prior repeated juxtaposition but by some element of resemblance. "His > voice reminds me of Roosevelt's." "His batting stance reminds me of Ted > Williams's." "His prose style reminds me of Thomas Browne's." "His > anti-Semitism > reminds me of Hitler's." > > One underlying inefficient and misleading trait of language is the way the > same utterance/scription is often used for a noun and a related verb - e.g. > 'fight'. 'Link', is also an example. 'Association' can be used to convey > the > activity of associating, or to cite an object - "I associate the Ford > Theater with the assassination of Lincoln, and I'll never shake that > association." > > That's only one of several reasons why 'associate' can be an infelicitous > word-choice. But no word is ever a sure thing to occasion a wanted specific > bit of consciousness in someone else's mind. > > My aim in this posting has been to describe how a word can "have" > associations - and to describe it without ever needing to resort to the > word (or > notion of) 'meaning'. If Ockham were on our forum, I think he would say > that a > philosopher who would talk of "the meaning of 'horsey'" and have in mind > something that is not a bit of consciousness but an abstract non-mental > entity > is a philosopher who is entertaining a thought of an unnecessary chimera, a > non-entity that can and should be barred from philosophical chambers - > though > it can be allowed in the kitchen. > > (Nor shuold we ever accept a physical animal as "the meaning of" of a word. > We'd never agree with, "Look - there's a meaning galloping down the > street!") > > Of course there's more to say, but I'm struggling to control my bad trait > of cramming a multiple of arguments into a single posting.
