The long series of quotes from LSV below was intended to go to the question of "*word is a sign for a concept*" not "word meaning is an artefact-mediated action". I will get busy on the latter later today. My problem in quote-collecting will be whether "psychological tool- and sign- and symbol-use," which LSV talks about at length, will be recognised as synonyms for "word meaning." Is "use" a process word or the property of an artefact? And of course, LSV *also* uses "word meaning" in reference to properties socially invested in a artefacts such as written speech and intepreted by the listener/reader. I believe that his central concern though is *speech*, the activity of speaking words. Being understood is a puzzle to be solved. And meaning develops. In children, spoken words are not yet signs for concepts, not yet fully signs, not yet fully concepts. But development is future-oriented.
--------------------
“... all higher the mental functions are mediated processes. A central and basic aspect of their structure is the use of the sign as a means of directing and mastering mental processes. In the problem of interests to us, the problem of concept formation, this sign is the word. *The word functions as the means for the formation of the concept. Later, it becomes its symbol*.” LSV CW v. 1 p. 126.
“[for the aphasic] *The word as a sign of a concept* is converted into the word as a sign of a complex. From this all reality begins to be thought of in completely different systems of connections, in another relation that differs sharply from the ordered thinking in concepts.” LSV CW v. 5 p. 132
“Speech is a powerful means of analysis and classification of phenomena, a means of ordering and generalising reality. *The word, becoming the carrier of the concept*, is, as one of the authors correctly noted, the real theory of the object to which it refers. The general in this case serves as the law of the particular. Recognising concrete reality and with the help of *words, which are signs for concepts*, man uncovers in the world he sees connections and patterns that are confined in it.” LSV CW v. 5 p. 48.
“In the chapter on concepts, we shall see that *the word that signifies the concept* actually appears first in the role of an indicator that isolates some traits of an object, calls attention to these traits, and only then does the word become a sign that represents these objects. Ach says that words are the means of directing attention so that in a series of objects that have the same name, common properties are identified on the basis of the name which thus leads to the formation of a concept.” LSV CW v. 4 p. 172
“In psychological terms, *word meaning is nothing other than a generalisation, that is, a concept*. In essence, generalisation and word meaning are synonyms. Any generalisation - any formation of a concept - is unquestionably a specific and true act of thought.” LSV CW v. 1 p. 244
“At any stage of its development, the concept is an /act of generalisation/. ... *the concept - represented psychologically as word meaning* - develops. ... this process is completed with the formation of true concepts.” LSV CW v. 1 p. 170
“The fact itself of naming a fact by a word means to frame this fact in a concept. ... *Each word already is a theory*”
“It has long been noted that the concept in essence represents nothing other than a certain aggregate of judgments, a system of acts of thinking. Thus one of the authors says that the concept considered psychologically, that is, not only from one aspect of content as it is in logic, but also from the aspect of the form of the concept in reality, in a word, as activity, is a certain number of judgments and, consequently, not a single act of thinking, but a series of these acts. The [formal - AB] logical concept, that is, the simultaneous sum total of traits, different from the aggregate of traits in its form, is a fiction, among other things, completely essential for science. Regardless of its *duration*, the psychological concepts has an internal unity.
“Thus we see that for the psychologist, the concept is an aggregate of acts of judgment, apperception, interpretation, and recognition. The concept taken in action, in movement, in reality, does not lose unity, but reflects its true nature. According to our hypothesis, we must seek the psychological equivalent of the concept not in general representations, not even in concrete verbal images that replace the general representations - we must seek it in a system of judgments in which the concept is disclosed.” LSV CW v. 5 p. 55 “... from the psychological aspect a concept turns out to be a *long activity* that includes in itself a series of acts of thinking.” p. 56 “If we accept the outlined view of the concept as a certain system of judgments, then we inevitably will agree also that the unified activity in which a concept is disclosed, the unified sphere of the manifestation of the system, is logical thinking. ... it is the concepts themselves in their action, in their functioning. ... we could define logical thinking as concept in action.” . p 57
“The basic problem associated with the problem of concept formation, and more generally, with the process of goal oriented activity, is the problem of the means through which a given mental operation is fulfilled ....” LSV CW v. 1 p. 126
“Thinking in concepts is a new form of intellectual activity, a new method of behaviour, a new intellectual mechanism.” LSV CW v. 5 p. 40
“if the basic and most general activity of the cerebral hemisphere in animals and in man is signalisation, then the basic and most general activity of man that differentiates man from animals in the first place, from the aspect of psychology, is /signification/, that is, the creation and use of signs, ... that is, artificial signs.” LSV CW v 4 p. 55
“from the psychological aspect, [tool and sign], may for this reason, be classified in the same category ... coordinative concepts in a more general concept - mediating activity.” p. 61
“if the act, independent of the word, stands at the beginning of development, then at its end stands the word becoming the act. The word, which makes the action of man free.” LSV CW v. 6 p. 68
“the system of a complex is a system of ordered concrete connections and relationships to the object that rest mainly on memory. A concept is a system of judgments which involves a relation to the entire, broader system.” LSV CW v. 3. p. 101.
Martin Packer wrote:
Andy just recently sent me a series of messages with textual evidence for his reading of LSV. I haven't had time to read them yet, but perhaps he'll want to post them here? (Under the other thread title!)
Meanwhile, on this thread let's continue to discuss Peirce's view of meaning, Huw's view, Bahktin's view, and all. Let the sign-play begin!
Martin
On Jun 15, 2011, at 3:05 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Martin Packer wrote:
Tony,
LSV's notion of word meaning, it needs to be based on textual evidence,
not on plausibility.
I agree. I don't know if Andy has previously shared a text-evidence account, but I would certainly be interested.
Martin
On Jun 15, 2011, at 10:52 AM, Tony Whitson wrote:
Put most briefly, for anybody who is interested:
Signs potentiate interpretation. That is what signs do. That's what semiosis (the activity of signs) is. This is the _semiosic_ activity of triadic sign relations. The meaning of a word consists of the interpretation that the word (qua sign) potentiates.
Weights resist the muscular activity of lifting. This is dynamic physical action (not tradic semiosic activity). In this capacity, the weight is just a thing, and not a sign.
Of course weights, beyond just in their dynamic resistance, can also participate in sign activity (as apparently they did in Congressman Weiner's weight-lifting in the Gongressional gym).
On Wed, 15 Jun 2011, Huw Lloyd wrote:
On 15 June 2011 14:53, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
The OED reflects the existing usage of words.
Semiotics explores and attempts to account for the nature of signs and sign
activity, including the nature of the meaning that signs do, and how signs
do their meaning.
Semiotics is not about deference to common usage, any more than is CHAT.
Which is why distinct terms are used.
If by "The meaning of a word is something the word does", you mean the
active system of mental representations in which the word meaning (a set of
relations) inheres and participates with other word meaning in particular
contexts, then we need to dig into this system to identify which aspects
relate to the defined word, and which relate to the system in which it
participates. Care must be taken not to confuse the defined thing with the
system it participates in. Words (like the weights of weight lifter) don't
(on their own) do anything, the system they participate in does the doing.
This is simply my opinion. It's fairly self-evident to me, and it's not
something I'm deeply interested in pursing, relative to other interests.
So, hopefully, I've answered the question put to me, and can let you get on
with your ruminations.
Huw
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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)
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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)
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g932564744
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
MIA: http://www.marxists.org
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca