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Re: [xmca] Word Meaning and Concept



Huw,
 
 I think it is still more subtle than has been adpetly  brought out thus far, we need to go beyond even crystal clarity of defining terms ( as Ilyenkov citation  earlier showed, to reach transformation).  Is this an issue that arises in a relational ontology? I ask because I don't get your point here 
The 'doing' that you refer to is achieved by the person.  The word, sentence
or other phenomena doesn't do anything in this respect.Can we think about a relational behavioural in  which a word, sentence  ( or other expression) cannot but relate ( in whatsoever circumstances or predicament it is encountered?)  
I refer to two quotes which frame the issue  for me:

One reference point to Maturana ' the behaviour of a living system is not something that the living system does, nor something that the medium specifies of its own, the behaviour arises and takes place in the relational livingsystem:medium (1987.1992) cited in Maturana et al 'Brain , Language  and the origin of mental functions' 1995
 In this he refers to the same separation with his historical relational domain as that in a cultural-historical tradition refered to by  separation from  'biological urges' and higher functions.
 The second is more interesting to think about  noun or verb, as this was the topic that Levinas struggled with in ( meaning)' being':

It is long but I think apt:



“What shows
itself under the name being? The name is not unequivocal. Is it a noun or a
verb? Does the word designate an entity, ideal or real, that is, or this entity’s
process of being , its essence? And does this word designate? No doubt it does designate.
But does it only designate? For if it only designates, then, even taken as a
verb, it is a noun.  And the process captured by the
designation, even if it is a movement, shows itself, but is immobilized and
fixed in the said. Does the mystery
of being and entities, their difference, disturb us already? The distinction
and the amphibology of being and entities will turn out from the start to be
important and to be determinant for truth, but this distinction is also an
amphibology and does not signify the ultimate. If this difference shows itself
in the said, in words (which are not epiphenomenal), if it belongs to monstration as  such, it belongs on
the same plane as being, whose hide-and-seek game is indeed essential. But if
monstration is a modality of signification, we would have to go back from the said  to the saying.
The said and the non-said do not absorb all the saying, which remains on this
side of, or goes beyond, the said.' 

(Levinas,
Chap 2’ Intentionality and Sensing' Otherwise
than being (1981)p23 and his battle was in being without the capital B)

Christine.

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