For me, the interesting paragraph in Chris's latest posting is the one in response to my saying that when someone uses a key term, and I'm unsure of what he has in mind, it's useful for me to ask him to describe his notion behind the term:
"But when one's first response is to challenge the asker to define precisely what is meant, all that ever seems to result is yet another sophomoric descent into beating the rather dead horse with respect to the uncertainty of meaning." Chris and I have very different minds and sensibilities. He feels that to query someone about what they have in mind with a given term is a "challenge"; I don't. (If anything, I truly think of it as a courtesy.) He interprets such a query as a request for a "precise definition" of "what is meant". I don't. I am asking for a description, a description of the notion in his mind as he uses the term. Since I'm the guy who has repeatedly said all notion is indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory, I would never call for a "precise" description, only a serviceable one. Suppose I say, "The famous emigrant poet's idea of the only way to express emotion was incomplete." I wouldn't take it as a challenge if you asked me what poet I had in mind, and, if interest extended that far, what his idea was. And, even further, why I say it was incomplete. I wrote: "Chris -- Your position seems to be that you are against asking him what he has in mind with 'Aesthetic Ideal'." Chris answered: "Not really 'against', just not interested." That's another way in which Chris's head and mine are basically different. I myself don't feel that asking someone what they have in mind is inevitably the beginning of a "sophomoric descent into beating a rather dead horse
