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Re: [xmca] fetishism | word meaning
On 7 June 2011 16:27, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com> wrote:
> Words are vocal sounds. Vocal sounds are meaningful.
>
I think you have an elision here, Joseph.
If you take "are" as the plural of "is", you're effectively saying:
"A word is a sound, sound is meaningful."
Hence you appear to be conflating the relation of equivalence with
aggregation:
(Spoken) Words are (composed of) vocal sounds.
Just as you might say "Pyramids are (composed of) stone" rather than
"Pyramids are buildings".
Huw
>
> Joseph Gilbert
>
>
> On Jun 6, 2011, at 9:15 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
>
> Peirce explicitly contended that the meaning of any sign (including words,
>> thoughts, arguments, feelings, or whatever), _qua_ signs, lies in the
>> virtuality of potential future interpretations (just by virtue of the
>> fundamental nature of what it is to be a sign, i.e., in the activity of
>> sign-relations).
>>
>> Also, notice that I'm using "meaning" as something that we -- and our
>> words, thoughts, etc. -- DO, not something they contain, convey, etc. I
>> recently noticed similar usage in the title of Jay's MCA review of Sfard's
>> book, which speaks of "Meaning Mathematically," not "mathematical meaning."
>> The latter locution could mean the same as Jay's, but it also would allow
>> the more familiar reading of "meaning" as a noun. If we need to begin
>> meaning differently than how we might be heard to mean in positivist
>> discourse, I think we need to begin choosing speaking that resists
>> assimilation to that discourse.
>>
>> On Mon, 6 Jun 2011, mike cole wrote:
>>
>> The poem is neat and your explication brings to mind a recurrent thought
>>> when I encounter the core idea of "the thought is completed in the word."
>>> I
>>> (think I) know what LSV and Mandelshtam are saying, but I always have
>>> this
>>> thought that the thought is not yet completed, not in so far as it is
>>> taken
>>> up, perhaps transformed, and comes back again at a later time, in some
>>> new,
>>> albeit related, form, to begin that side of the cycle over again.
>>> mike
>>>
>>> On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> I clipped the wrong line from Martin's post in that last message. I
>>>> meant
>>>> the Dickinson verse in reponse to the line that now appears below from
>>>> Martin.
>>>>
>>>> In Dickinson's verse, what's not timeless is not merely the meaning that
>>>> a
>>>> word does as a lexical unit in a language (i.e., in the philological
>>>> sense),
>>>> but even in a specific utterance the word spoken continues meaning, as
>>>> it
>>>> continues living, non-timelessly.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 1 May 2011, Tony Whitson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 26 Apr 2011, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> For LSV word-meaning is not timeless. It changes over time; he didn't
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> study philology for nothing!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A word is dead
>>>>
>>>>> When it is said
>>>>> Some say.
>>>>> I say it just
>>>>> Begins to live
>>>>> That day.
>>>>>
>>>>> --Emily Dickinson
>>>>>
>>>>> I find it helpful to think of meaning as something that words do -- not
>>>>> something they contain, convey, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tony Whitson
>>>> UD School of Education
>>>> NEWARK DE 19716
>>>>
>>>> twhitson@udel.edu
>>>> _______________________________
>>>>
>>>> "those who fail to reread
>>>> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>>>> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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>>>
>> Tony Whitson
>> UD School of Education
>> NEWARK DE 19716
>>
>> twhitson@udel.edu
>> _______________________________
>>
>> "those who fail to reread
>> are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>> -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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>
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