In a message dated 10/18/10 5:25:27 PM, [email protected] writes:
> in a conversation, the "meanings" of the words and statements (as > understood by the participants) typically coincide to a large degree, but > maybe not perfectly, in which case someone says, "No, that's not exactly > what > I meant." > But my claim was that this is exactly what was not happening in the exchanges between the several listers talking about "rules". No one said "That's not what I meant," because, suspect I, it simply didn't occur to them that though they were all using the same word, they had different notions behind the usages. From the very first appearance of the word on this thread I realized I couldn't be sure what the lister had in mind. Granted, because of my background with its heavy focus on the shortcomings of language, I'm especially sensitive to this, but I don't think I was wrong in my suspicion: I felt sure I was detecting evidence of different notions behind the various remarks. In my last posting I cited the word 'expression', because I'll bet something similar would arise if it became a thread. Listers would use and "interpret" the word with a surety that everyone talking "meant the same thing". But, like so many of the words in philosophy, 'expression' heaves with ambiguity if it's used without an explanation of what the speaker has in mind. For openers, 'expression' can be used when the speaker has in mind the action, or it can be used when he's thinking about the phrase, painting, gesture. Sometimes the act of "expressing" is attributed to the person "he is expressing himself", and sometimes to the object, "That picture expresses..." Wittgenstein uses 'rules' a lot, and I've always found his usage faulty in in its ambiguity. In making my remarks about the use of 'rules' in this thread, I was not just pretending confusion. I knew damn well I couldn't have any surety about what was on the minds of the several listers in the exchange.
