[Xmca-l] Re: The Stuff of Words

Andy Blunden ablunden@mira.net
Mon May 8 22:13:43 PDT 2017


Sure Greg. I waited till I retired. It is just a pity that 
young people have been encouraged to prioritise the 
Phenomenology which is such a difficult and complex work.

Have a read of this: 
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hlnotion.htm 
- that's just 20 pages.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 9/05/2017 1:22 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> Andy,
>
> My privileging of Hegel's Phenomenology is not because I 
> think it is the only worthwhile book that he has written. 
> Rather, it is the only book of his that I have had time to 
> deal with in any substantial fashion. To try to make sense 
> of a single book of his is an incredibly time-consuming 
> task and I'm afraid am not a good enough scholar (quick 
> enough reader, etc.) to be able to take on another one. I 
> was simply trolling for some insight into Hegel's 
> treatment of Here, This, Now, and how it fits into his 
> larger work (the Logic as well). But I guess that will 
> have to wait for another lifetime (or at least until 
> retirement).
>
> Cheers,
> greg
>
>
> On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 8:28 PM, Andy Blunden 
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>     The reason why I picked out icon/index/symbol of all
>     the many firstness/secondness/thirdnesses Peirce
>     offers us is that all the rest are found in Hegel and
>     systematically elaborated there. But not
>     icon/index/symbol. As you know Greg I am not one of
>     those that think that The Phenomenology is the only
>     book Hegel wrote, so I will refer you to the Science
>     of Logic, chapter on the Concept (a.k.a. Notion).
>
>     Andy
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------
>     Andy Blunden
>     http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>     http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>     <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
>     On 8/05/2017 12:12 PM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>         Andy (and others),
>
>         I agree that Peirce seems a good complement to Hegel.
>
>         One interesting bit where there seems to be some
>         overlap is in Hegel's interest in what Silverstein
>         calls, using Peircean language, "referential
>         indexicals" (these are signs which have
>         referential value but their referential value is
>         primarily indexical - pronouns are a classic
>         example, but see my next sentence for more
>         examples). I can't recall where I saw this in
>         Hegel's writing but it seems like he has a bit
>         somewhere on "Here, This, Now" (as translated). Do
>         you recall where this is? Or what Hegel is "up to"
>         in that section? I've always wondered.
>
>         As mentioned above, Silverstein makes quite a bit
>         of the importance of referential indexicals in
>         everyday talk. He calls them the "skeleton" on
>         which we hang the rest of discourse (and without
>         which, our discourse would be meaningless). And
>         closer to home, in Stanton Wortham's essay Mapping
>         Participant Deictics, Wortham makes the case for
>         the importance of mapping participant deictics in
>         the talk of a classroom. He argues that you can
>         understand quite a bit about the social structure
>         of a classroom by following how different
>         participant deictics are deployed.
>
>         Anyway, back to Hegel, Andy, I'd be interested to
>         hear about Hegel and his Here, This, Now.
>
>         Thanks,
>         -greg
>
>
>         On Sun, May 7, 2017 at 6:32 PM, Andy Blunden
>         <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
>         <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
>         <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
>             Oh Henry I don't see Peirce as Linguist. Only a
>             Linguist would see Peirce as a Linguist,
>         because they
>             see everything as a branch of Linguistics. I see
>             Peirce as a Philosopher. And he could claim to be
>             utterly incapable of managing his own life as the
>             foremost qualification for being a
>         philosopher. Peirce
>             was a Logician who invented two different
>         schools of
>             philosophy: Pragmatism and Semiotics.
>
>             I value Peirce's Icon/Index/Symbol in particular
>             because it is a logical triad which Hegel never
>             theorised and it nicely complements Hegel
>         helping us
>             understand how Logic is in the world. For Peirce,
>             Semiotics is something going on in Nature
>         before it is
>             acquired by human beings, which is an idea I
>             appreciate. He is also worthy of praise for how he
>             overcame all kinds of Dualism with both his
>         Semiotics
>             and his Pragmaticism.
>
>             A total madman. A real Metaphysician,
>
>             Andy
>
>            
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>             Andy Blunden
>         http://home.mira.net/~andy
>         <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>         <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>         http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>            
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>>
>
>             On 8/05/2017 3:22 AM, HENRY SHONERD wrote:
>
>                 David and Andy,
>                 I have seen Peirce’s categories firstness,
>                 secondness and thirdness on the chat
>         before, and
>                 certainly you were part of that discussion. I
>                 would like to understand that better, also
>         how it
>                 relates to the three categories of signs
>         (iconic,
>                 indexical and symbolic). I have been
>         reading your
>                 “Thinking of Feeling” piece and wonder how
>         that
>                 might relate, which I hope so, since it would
>                 bring development into the mix. Also (sorry!),
>                 Andy’s Academia articles on political
>                 representation and activity/social theory are
>                 probably relevant in some way, though Andy
>                 probably sees language as a figure against a
>                 larger ground and a linguist (like Peirce)
>         turns
>                 the figure/ground relationship around?
>                 Henry
>
>
>                     On May 5, 2017, at 4:01 PM, David Kellogg
>                     <dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>                     <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
>                     Greg:
>
>                     (As usual, I don't see the problem. I
>         usually
>                     don't see these problems
>                     until the tide is well and truly over
>         my head.)
>
>                     Meaning is simply another word for
>                     organization. Organization is always
>                     present and never separable from
>         matter: it's
>                     a property of matter, the way
>                     that the internet is a property of a
>         computer.
>                     Sometimes this organization
>                     is brought about without any human
>                     intervention (if you are religious, you
>                     will say that it brought about
>         divinely, and
>                     if you are Spinozan, by
>                     nature: it amounts to the same thing,
>         because
>                     "Deus Sive Natura").
>                     Sometimes it is brought about by human
>                     ingenuity (but of course if you are
>                     religious you will say that it is the
>         divine
>                     in humans at work, and if you
>                     are Spinozan you will say that humans are
>                     simply that part of nature which
>                     has become conscious of itself: once
>         again, Ii
>                     think it amounts to the same
>                     thing). So of course there are not two
>         kinds
>                     of substance, res cogitans vs
>                     res extensa, only one substance and
>         different
>                     ways of organizing it (which
>                     in the end amount to the same thing).
>
>                     You say that discourse particles like
>         "Guess
>                     what?" and "so there" and
>                     "because" and "irregardless" and "what
>         you say
>                     to the contrary
>                     notwithstanding" are "indexical". I agree,
>                     insofar as they depend on their
>                     relationship to the context of
>         situation for
>                     their meaning. You say that a
>                     Southern drawl is indexical, and that the
>                     relationship of jazz or blues or
>                     hiphop to blackness is indexical. I agree,
>                     insofar as they satisfy the
>                     condition I just mentioned. But
>         "because" is
>                     also a symbol, and a
>                     Southerner still sounds like a
>         Southerner when
>                     he/she moves to New York
>                     City (and in fact you can argue they sound
>                     more so). In Africa, jazz and
>                     blues and hiphop in Africa are related to
>                     Americanness and not to
>                     blackness.
>
>                     So your division of signs into just three
>                     categories is too simple, Greg.
>                     In fact, if you really read your
>         Peirce, you
>                     will discover that there are
>                     tens of thousands of categories, but
>         they are
>                     generated from three
>                     ineffable primitives ("firstness",
>                     "secondness", and "thirdness"). So for
>                     example all words are symbols insofar
>         as you
>                     have to know English in order
>                     to understand "Guess what?" or
>         "because". But
>                     some words are
>                     symbol-indices, symbols that function as
>                     indexes, because they depend
>                     on the context of situation for their
>         meaning.
>                     Without the symbolic
>                     gateway, they cannot function as
>         indices. My
>                     wife, for example, cannot tell
>                     a Southerner from a more general American
>                     accent, and I myself still have
>                     trouble figuring out who is an
>         Australian and
>                     who is an FOB bloody pom.
>                     Similarly, my wife doesn't see the
>         blackness
>                     in hiphop--it sounds like
>                     K-pop to her.
>
>                     I don't actually think that any signs are
>                     associative or "prehensive"; I
>                     think that they are all different ways of
>                     looking or apprehending. So for
>                     example you can apprehend a wording as a
>                     symbol: a way of organizing sound
>                     stuff so that it "stands for" a way of
>                     organizing other stuff (sometimes
>                     lunchboxes and backpacks, actual
>         categories of
>                     objects and sometimes the
>                     abstract models-in-the-making that
>         Andy calls
>                     "projects"). You can also
>                     look at wording as index: not as something
>                     that is "associated" to the lips
>                     and tongue by juxtaposition or
>         proximity or
>                     even continguity but rather
>                     something that has a necessary
>         relation to the
>                     vocal tract (which is itself
>                     not a physiological organ, but something
>                     brought about by human
>                     organization). But when I look at
>         sound waves
>                     on my Praat spectrograph and
>                     think of the shelving sea, what I am
>         trying to
>                     get at is the sound stuff,
>                     the noise, the firstness of the stuff of
>                     words. I'm not Cezanne: I don't
>                     think there is any way of doing this
>         with my
>                     eyes or ears alone: I think it
>                     requires a very complex combination of
>         tools
>                     and signs to get down to
>                     firstness. But as Spinoza would have
>         said if
>                     he had breakfast with
>                     Bacon, the head and the hand are not
>         much by
>                     themselves, but nobody
>                     has ever really shown the limits of
>         what they
>                     can do when they put each
>                     other in order and start to organize
>         the world
>                     around them.
>
>                     (And that is about as much philosophy
>         as you
>                     are going to get out of me,
>                     I'm afraid. The tide is galloping in....)
>
>                     David Kellogg
>                     Macquarie University
>
>                     PS: What I am absolutely certain of is
>         this:
>                     mediating activity is not
>                     absent in sign use, pace Alfredo or
>                     Wolff-Michael, but it is very different
>                     from mediating activity in tool use,
>         for the
>                     same reason that painting is
>                     different from wording: in painting
>         you CAN
>                     leave out the human (if you are
>                     doing a dead seal for example, or if
>         you are
>                     Rothko or Jackson Pollack--but
>                     keep in mind that the former committed
>         suicide
>                     and the latter murdered two
>                     innocent young women). But in wording you
>                     never ever can. Wording can feel
>                     unmediated--in fact it has to feel
>         unmediated
>                     or it doesn't work very
>                     well--but in reality it's even more
>         mediated
>                     than ever.
>
>                     dk
>
>
>                     On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 1:09 AM, Greg
>         Thompson
>                     <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
>         <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
>                     <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
>         <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>>
>
>                     wrote:
>
>                         David (and others),
>
>                         In the interests of disagreement
>         (which I
>                         know you dearly appreciate), your
>                         last post included this:
>                         "Words don't "cause" meaning: they
>         provide
>                         material correlates for meaning
>                         and in that sense "realise" them
>         as matter."
>
>                         I was with you up until that
>         point, but
>                         that's where I always lose you.
>
>                         I know it is a rather trite thing
>         to say
>                         but I guess it really depends on
>                         what you mean by "meaning". If by
>         meaning,
>                         you mean some plane of existence
>                         that runs parallel to the material
>         stuff,
>                         then this seems to be a bit of
>                         trouble since this leaves us with,
>         on the
>                         one hand, "matter" (res extensa?
>                         noumena?), and on the other hand
>         "meaning"
>                         (res cogitans? phenomena?).
>                         Matter is easy enough to locate,
>         but where
>                         do we locate "meaning" as you
>                         have described it?
>
>                         This reminds me of Saussure's classic
>                         drawing on p. 112 of his Cours
>                         (attached) in which "the
>         indefinite plane
>                         of jumbled ideas" (A in the
>                         diagram) exists on one side of the
>         chasm
>                         and "the equally vague plane of
>                         sounds" (B) exists on the other
>         side of
>                         the chasm. Each side is
>                         self-contained and
>         self-referential, and
>                         never the twain shall meet. Worlds
>                         apart.
>
>                         And this ties to the conversation
>         in the
>                         other thread about the
>                         ineffability of meaning (as well
>         as Andy's
>                         Marx quote about a science of
>                         language that is shorn from life). My
>                         suspicion is that this supposed
>                         ineffability of meaning has
>         everything to
>                         do with this Saussurean approach
>                         to semiotics (i.e., meaningfulness).
>
>                         Peirce's triadic view of the sign
>         offers a
>                         different approach that may give
>                         a way out of this trouble by
>         putting the
>                         word back INto the world. (p. 102
>                         of the attached Logic as Semiotic).
>
>                         Peirce offers three kinds of
>         relations of
>                         representamen (signifier) to
>                         object: iconic, indexical, and
>         symbolic.
>                         The symbol is the relation with
>                         which we are most familiar - it is
>         the one
>                         that Saussure speaks of and is
>                         the one that is ineffable or, in
>                         Saussure's words, "arbitrary", i.e.
>                         "conventional". It is the stuff of
>         words,
>                         the meaning of which is found in
>                         other words (hence the sense of
>                         ineffability). With only the symbolic
>                         function, the whole world of words
>         would
>                         be entirely self-referential and
>                         thus truly ineffable (and this is
>         why I
>                         like to say that Derrida is the end
>                         of the Saussurean road - he took
>         that idea
>                         to its logical conclusion and
>                         discovered that the meaning of
>         meaning is,
>                         well, empty (and thus
>                         ineffable)).
>
>                         But Peirce has two other relations of
>                         representamen to object, the iconic
>                         and the indexical. In signs
>         functioning
>                         iconically, the representamen
>                         contains some quality of the
>         object that
>                         it represents (e.g., a map that
>                         holds relations of the space that it
>                         represents or onomatopoeia like "buzz"
>                         in which the representamen has
>         some of the
>                         qualities of the sound of the
>                         bee flying by). With signs functioning
>                         indexically, the relationship of
>                         representamen to object is one of
>         temporal
>                         or spatial contiguity (e.g.,
>                         where there is smoke there is fire, or
>                         where there is a Southern twang,
>                         there is a Southerner, or, most
>                         classically, when I point, the
>         object to
>                         which I am pointing is spatially
>                         contiguous with the finger that is
>                         pointing).
>
>                         Now if I follow the argument of
>         another of
>                         the inheritors of Roman
>                         Jakobson's legacy, Michael Silverstein
>                         (yes, Hasan and Halliday weren't the
>                         only inheritors of this tradition -
>                         Michael was a student of Jakobson's at
>                         Harvard... and he does a great
>         impression
>                         of Jacobson too), then we can
>                         indeed locate a ground of the word
>         (i.e.,
>                         the symbolic function) in the
>                         more primitive (i.e., rudimentary)
>                         indexical function.
>
>                         But that argument is always a bit
>         too much
>                         for me (if there are any takers,
>                         the best place to find this
>         argument is in
>                         Silverstein's chapter
>                         "Metapragmatic Discourse,
>         Metapragmatic
>                         Function," or in less explicit but
>                         slightly more understandable article
>                         "Indexical Order and the Dialectics of
>                         Sociolinguistics Life").
>
>                         Vygotsky's argument is quite a bit
>         more
>                         elegant and comprehensible: in
>                         ontogeny meaningfulness begins
>         with the
>                         index, first as the index par
>                         excellence, pointing (something
>         that, as
>                         Andy has previously pointed out,
>                         might not be exactly how things go
>         in a
>                         literal sense, but the general
>                         structure here works well, I
>         think, as a
>                         heuristic if nothing else - words
>                         are first learned as indexes,
>         temporally
>                         and spatially collocated, "bottle"
>                         is first uttered as a way of saying
>                         "thirsty" and then later to refer to a
>                         co-present object; note this is
>         also why
>                         young kids get discourse markers
>                         at such a young age (and seems
>         incredibly
>                         precocious when they do!), since
>                         discourse markers are primarily
>                         indexical). The indexical function
>         is the
>                         rudimentary form that then
>         provides the
>                         groundwork for the development of
>                         the symbolic function.
>
>                         So then, in this Peircean(Vygotskian)
>                         approach, the meaning of signs is not
>                         ineffable, there is a grounding
>         for words,
>                         and that grounding is the
>                         indexical, the "word"/sign that is
>         both in
>                         the world and of the world.
>
>                         This seems to me a way of putting
>         meaning
>                         back into matter. And perhaps
>                         speaking of words as the material
>                         correlates of meaning can be a useful
>                         heuristic (i.e., how else can we talk
>                         about meanings and concepts given our
>                         current set of
>         meanings/concepts?). But we
>                         should also recognize that if it
>                         becomes more than an heuristic it
>         can lead
>                         us astray if we take it too far.
>
>                         I'd add here that I think one of the
>                         greatest opportunities for CHAT to
>                         make a contribution to social science
>                         today is in its conceptualization of
>                         "concepts" (and, by extension,
>                         "meaningfulness"). I think that
>         perhaps one
>                         of the most taken-for-granted
>         aspects of
>                         social science today is the idea
>                         that we know what "concepts" are. In
>                         anthropology, people easily talk about
>                         "cultural concepts" and typically they
>                         mean precisely something that floats
>                         around in some ethereal plane of
>                         "meaningfulness" and which is not
>         of the
>                         material stuff of the world. Yet, this
>                         runs counter to the direction that
>                         anthropology is heading these days
>         with
>                         the so-called "ontological turn"
>                         (I'll hold off on explaining this
>         for now
>                         since this post is already
>                         running way too long, but I'll just
>                         mention that one of the aims of
>         this is
>                         to get to a non-dualistic social
>         science).
>                         CHAT's conception of the concept
>                         seems to me to offer precisely what is
>                         needed -- a way of understanding the
>                         concept as a fundamentally
>         cultural and
>                         historical thing, rather than
>                         simply as an "ideal" thing. The
>         concept is
>                         the holding of a(n historical)
>                         relation across time (cf. Hebb's
>         synapse
>                         or Peirce's sunflower). Concepts
>                         are thus little historical text-lets.
>
>                         Okay, that was too much. Perhaps I
>         will
>                         find some time in the future to
>                         return to that last part, but
>         there is no
>                         time to develop it further now.
>
>                         Anyway, I'm glad that I finally
>         had the
>                         opportunity to catch up to these
>                         conversations. Delightful
>         reading/thinking.
>
>                         I'll keep reading but no promises that
>                         I'll be able to comment (as a young
>                         scholar, I need to be spending my time
>                         putting stuff out - and unlike the
>                         rest of you, I'm no good at
>                         multi-tasking... it's either one
>         or the other
>                         for me).
>
>                         Very best,
>                         greg
>
>
>
>                         On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 4:18 PM, David
>                         Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>                         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>>
>
>                         wrote:
>
>                             Well, yes. But if present day
>                             conditions are the REVERSE of the
>
>                         conditions
>
>                             under which Vygotsky was
>         writing--that
>                             is, if the present trend is to
>                             subsume labor under language
>         instead
>                             of the other way around--don't we
>
>                         need
>
>                             this distinction between signs and
>                             tools more than ever? That is, if
>
>                         sloppy
>
>                             formulations like "cultural
>         capital",
>                             "symbolic violence", "use/exchange
>                             value of the word" are erasing the
>                             distinction between a mediating
>
>                         activity
>
>                             which acts on the environment
>         and a
>                             mediating activity which acts on
>
>                         other
>
>                             mediators and on the self, and
>         which
>                             therefore has the potential for
>                             reciprocity and recursion,
>         isn't this
>                             exactly where the clear-eyed
>                             philosophers need to step in and
>                             straighten us out?
>
>                             I think that instead what is
>         happening
>                             is that our older generation
>                             of rheumy-eyed philosophers
>         (present
>                             company--usually--excluded)
>         are too
>                             interested in the "tool power" of
>                             large categories and
>         insufficiently
>                             interested in fine
>         distinctions that
>                             make a difference. But perhaps it
>                             is also that our younger
>         generation of
>                             misty-eyed philosophers are, as
>                             Eagleton remarked, more
>         interested in
>                             copulating bodies than exploited
>                             ones. Yet these fine
>         distinctions that
>                             do make a difference equally allow
>                             generalization and abstraction and
>                             tool power, and the copulating
>         flesh
>
>                         and
>
>                             the exploited muscles are one
>         and the
>                             same.
>
>                             Take, for example, your remark
>         about
>                             the Fourier transform performed by
>
>                         the
>
>                             ear (not the brain--the inner ear
>                             cochlea--I can see the world
>         centre for
>                             studying the cochlea from my
>         office
>                             window). Actually, it's part of a
>
>                         wide
>
>                             range of "realisation"
>         phenomena that
>                             were already being noticed by
>                             Vygotsky. In realisational
>         phenomena,
>                             you don't have cause and effect,
>
>                         just
>
>                             as in cause and effect you
>         don't have
>                             "association". Words don't "cause"
>                             meaning: they provide material
>                             correlates for meaning and in
>         that sense
>                             "realise" them as matter.
>         Meaning does
>                             not "cause" wording; it correlates
>                             wording to a semantics--an
>         activity of
>                             consciousness--and through it to a
>                             context of situation or
>         culture, and
>                             in that sense "realises" it.
>
>                             So in his lecture on early
>         childhood,
>                             Vygotsky says that the
>
>                         stabilization
>
>                             of forms, colours, and sizes
>         by the
>                             eye in early childhood is part
>         of a
>
>                         two
>
>                             way relationship, a dialogue,
>         between
>                             the sense organs and the
>         brain. The
>                             reason why we don't see a
>         table as a
>                             trapezoid, when we stand over
>         it and
>                             compare the front with the
>         back, the
>                             reason why we don't see a piece of
>                             chalk at nighttime as black, the
>                             reason why we have orthoscopic
>
>                         perception
>
>                             and we don't see a man at a
>         distance
>                             as a looming midget is that the
>
>                         brain
>
>                             imposes the contrary views on
>         the eye.
>                             And where does the brain get this
>                             view if not from language and from
>                             other people?
>
>                             David Kellogg
>                             Macquarie University
>
>
>
>
>
>                             On Wed, May 3, 2017 at 11:55
>         AM, Andy
>                             Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
>         <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
>                             <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
>         <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
>                                 Personally, I think the
>         first and
>                                 most persistently
>         important thing is
>
>                         to
>
>                                 see how much alike are
>         tables and
>                                 words.
>
>                                 But ... Vygotsky was very
>                                 insistent on the distinction
>                                 because he was
>                                 fighting a battle against
>         the idea
>                                 that speech ought to be
>         subsumed
>
>                         under
>
>                                 the larger category of
>         labour. He
>                                 had to fight for semiotics
>         against a
>                                 vulgar kind of orthodox
>         Marxism.
>                                 But we here in 2017 are
>         living in
>                                 different times, where we have
>                                 Discourse Theory and
>         Linguistics while
>                                 Marxism is widely regarded as
>                                 antique. As Marx said "Just as
>
>                         philosophers
>
>                                 have given thought an
>         independent
>                                 existence, so they were
>         bound to make
>                                 language into an independent
>                                 realm." and we live well
>         and truly
>                                 in the
>                                 times when labour is subsumed
>                                 under language, and not
>         the other way
>
>                             around.
>
>                                 Everyone knows that a table is
>                                 unlike a word. The point it to
>
>                         understand
>
>                                 how tables are signs and
>         word are
>                                 material objects.
>
>                                 Andy
>
>                                 (BTW David, back in 1986 I
>         walked
>                                 in an offshoot of the
>         bionic ear
>                                 project. The ear has a little
>                                 keyboard that works like a
>         piano
>                                 keyboard
>
>                             in
>
>                                 reverse, making a real time
>                                 Fourier transform of that air
>                                 pressure wave
>
>                             and
>
>                                 coding the harmonics it in
>         nerve
>                                 impulse. The brain never
>         hears that
>                                 pressure signal.)
>
>                                
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>                                 Andy Blunden
>         http://home.mira.net/~andy
>         <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>                                 <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>         http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>                                
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>         <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>>
>                                 On 3/05/2017 7:06 AM, Alfredo
>                                 Jornet Gil wrote:
>
>                                     David (and or Mike, Andy,
>                                     anyone else), could
>         you give a
>                                     bit more on
>
>                             that
>
>                                     distinction between
>         words and
>                                     tables?
>
>                                     And could you say how (and
>                                     whether) (human, hand)
>         nails
>                                     are different
>                                     from tables; and then how
>                                     nails are different
>         from words?
>
>                                     Alfredo
>         ________________________________________
>                                     From:
>         xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>         <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>                                    
>         <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>         <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
>         <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.
>
>                         edu>
>
>                                     on behalf of David Kellogg
>                                     <dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>
>                                    
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com
>         <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>>
>
>                                     Sent: 01 May 2017 08:43
>                                     To: eXtended Mind,
>         Culture,
>                                     Activity
>                                     Subject: [Xmca-l]  The
>         Stuff
>                                     of Words
>
>                                     Gordon Wells quotes
>         this from
>                                     an article Mike wrote in a
>                                     Festschrift
>
>                         for
>
>                                     George Miller. Mike is
>         talking
>                                     about artefacts:
>
>                                     "They are ideal in
>         that they
>                                     contain in coded form the
>                                     interactions of
>                                     which they
>                                     were previously a part and
>                                     which they mediate in the
>                                     present (e.g.,
>
>                         the
>
>                                     structure of
>                                     a pencil carries
>         within it the
>                                     history of certain
>         forms of
>                                     writing).
>
>                             They
>
>                                     are material
>                                     in that they are
>         embodied in
>                                     material artifacts.
>         This principle
>
>                         applies
>
>                                     with equal
>                                     force whether one is
>                                     considering
>         language/speech or
>                                     the more usually
>
>                             noted
>
>                                     forms
>                                     of artifacts such as
>         tables
>                                     and knives which
>         constitute
>                                     material
>
>                             culture.
>
>                                     What
>                                     differentiates a word,
>         such as
>                                     “language” from, say,
>         a table.
>                                     is the
>                                     relative prominence
>                                     of their material and
>         ideal
>                                     aspects. No word
>         exists apart
>                                     from its
>                                     material
>                                     instantiation (as a
>                                     configuration of sound
>         waves,
>                                     or hand movements,
>
>                         or
>
>                             as
>
>                                     writing,
>                                     or as neuronal activity),
>                                     whereas every table
>         embodies
>                                     an order
>
>                         imposed
>
>                             by
>
>                                     thinking
>                                     human beings."
>
>                                     This is the kind of
>         thing that
>                                     regularly gets me
>         thrown out of
>
>                         journals
>
>                             by
>
>                                     the ear. Mike says
>         that the
>                                     difference between a
>         word and
>                                     a table is
>
>                         the
>
>                                     relative salience of
>         the ideal
>                                     and the material.
>         Sure--words
>                                     are full
>
>                         of
>
>                                     the ideal, and tables
>         are full
>                                     of material. Right?
>
>                                     Nope. Mike says it's
>         the other
>                                     way around. Why? Well,
>         because
>                                     a word
>                                     without some
>         word-stuff (sound
>                                     or graphite) just isn't a
>                                     word. In a
>                                     word, meaning is
>         solidary with
>                                     material sounding:
>         change one,
>                                     and you
>                                     change the other. But
>         with a
>                                     table, what you start
>         with is
>                                     the idea of
>
>                             the
>
>                                     table; as soon as
>         you've got
>                                     that idea, you've got
>         a table.
>                                     You could
>                                     change the material to
>                                     anything and you'd
>         still have
>                                     a table.
>
>                                     Wells doesn't throw
>         Mike out
>                                     by the ear. But he
>         does ignore the
>
>                             delightful
>
>                                     perversity in what Mike is
>                                     saying, and what he
>         gets out
>                                     of the quote
>
>                         is
>
>                                     just that words are really
>                                     just like tools. When
>         in fact
>                                     Mike is
>
>                         saying
>
>                                     just the opposite.
>
>                                     (The part I don't get is
>                                     Mike's notion that the
>                                     structure of a pencil
>                                     carries within it the
>         history
>                                     of certain forms of
>         writing.
>                                     Does he
>
>                         mean
>
>                                     that the length of the
>         pencil
>                                     reflects how often
>         it's been
>                                     used? Or is
>
>                             he
>
>                                     making a more
>         archaeological
>                                     point about graphite,
>         wood,
>                                     rubber and
>
>                             their
>
>                                     relationship to a certain
>                                     point in the history of
>                                     writing and erasing?
>                                     Actually, pencils are more
>                                     like tables than like
>                                     words--the idea has
>
>                         to
>
>                                     come first.)
>
>                                     David Kellogg
>                                     Macquarie University
>
>
>
>
>
>                         --
>                         Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>                         Assistant Professor
>                         Department of Anthropology
>                         880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>                         Brigham Young University
>                         Provo, UT 84602
>         http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>         <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>
>                        
>         <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>         <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>         -- 
>         Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>         Assistant Professor
>         Department of Anthropology
>         880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>         Brigham Young University
>         Provo, UT 84602
>         http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>         <http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>
>
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson



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