RE: [xmca] The Ubiquity of Unicorns

["Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>]

Hi Michael,
 
I have been mulling over your question about meaning for the last day trying to figure out how to convey it in a way that bring activity and rules systems, and words all into some type of transactional field.  I have been feeling trapped because as soon as I say what meaning means I am reifying it, from an objective, almost realist perspective.  It is so damned hard to escape the realist and idealist traps that are lurking everywhere.  If I was going to describe what meaning is I would have to do it through showing an activity where meaning is determined by transient and yet very powerful rule systems (perhaps an addendum to Marx's false consciousness).  Then this morning I came across the column
 
"We Know What he Means" by a very good columnist named Bob Herbert.  I hope this link goes through.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/opinion/24herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
 
Meaning is definitely being established by Guiliani and Bloomberg in theses sequence of events.  Words are being used as instruments (some might say weapons) to achieve a goal.  The fact that those who speaks the words, and probably many of those who listen, do not in any way agree with the superficial aspects of the conversation (e.g. New York is in danger of becoming 1967 Detroit) very specific meanings are at the same time being established in order to achieve goals.  What is interesting is that I wonder how people who don't know the rules around urban politics would take the words - and I would suggest that the words actually have a much more delimited meaning to them.  However if those individual continued reading Bob Herbert's columns for a year, or good Herbert and racial politics, they would I believe be able to get the same meaning as those who are from New York.
 
Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Wolff-Michael Roth
Sent: Fri 10/23/2009 3:58 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Ubiquity of Unicorns



Hi Michael,
you must have misunderstood me. We have two interconnected orders, 
one of sound patterns, which we hear or read as words, the other one 
some world generally. I didn't write about "meaning" because I don't 
(try to) use it, because it is overused and abused. The two orders 
are interwoven, and a sound can change the other order, "Step aside" 
may get a person to move and therefore the world changes, but it also 
may earn you a fist on the nose, and the two effects are different.

I think Wittgenstein and especially later philosophers would agree 
that there is NO system of rules sufficient to explain language in 
use, which was precisely the point in the discussion between Derrida 
and Searle on speech act theory, and the various interpreters of the 
exchange, as people like Culler and Habermas subsequently further 
elaborate.

The rules themselves are made as we go, and this is what I attempt to 
capture (at least in part) with the notion of con/texture and con/
texting, where text not only "means" but also establishes the very 
context within which it definitively "means" (to use your verb). (See 
I can mention use, thereby also use, and the difference between 
mention and use becomes undecidable, in the very sentence preceding 
this parenthesis.)

I have no idea in which sense you use "meaning". What does someone 
understand when they understand the "meaning". What is "meaning"? The 
trouble is with the word that users point to something obliquely. 
What is the "meaning" of Bildung?

Michael


On 23-Oct-09, at 11:23 AM, Michael Glassman wrote:

But Michael,

Isn't this taking something of a realist approach to words?  That is 
that certain words mean certain things, which the reader can actually 
know and therefore use to help interpret of the meaning of the text 
around them.  This means that there are certain words that can be 
known and can't be known, based on experience.  I am thinking of 
Wittgenstein's observation of the chess game, where if you saw two 
people playing from a distance you would think they were playing the 
same game with the same rules you were playing, but this is only an 
assumption, because they do not share the community's understanding 
of the rules.  But I am thinking that Wittgenstein saw this more as 
an issue of cultural capital rather than absolute knowledge.  If it 
is important to teach an individual the rules of the game you can 
teach them.  I think somebody like Rorty might argue that this was 
inevitable as long as the players, those reading the text, were 
interested and active in the understanding.  When an individual 
writes a text he is writing at least to some degree to teach what all 
the meanings of the word are.  So somebody reading a text reads the 
word Bildung in the text, he or she is confused, but is interested in 
understanding.  They return to the text again as they attempt to get 
their horizon to meet with the author's (hat tip to Gadamer).  In the 
end the reader may not be able to describe Bildung outside of the 
text, outside of the authors specific vision.  And may not be able to 
describe it to somebody who is not sharing that particular horizon.  
But they understand the meaning and the role that word is playing in 
the text in an important way.

Michael

________________________________

From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Wolff-Michael Roth
Sent: Fri 10/23/2009 2:04 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Ubiquity of Unicorns



Hi,


On 23-Oct-09, at 10:51 AM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:

consciousness has developed.  David Kellogg has provided numerous
examples
of how native Korean speaking people do not grasp basic concepts of the
english language.  Some of the low achieving students I work with have


I think, with Heidegger, Derrida, Rorty, Wittgenstein, Davidson,
Deleuze, and others, that the difference between knowing a language
and knowing one's way around the (cultural) world is undecidable.
Concepts are not just concepts of English language, they are
irreducibly interwoven with the way of life.

This is why Anglo-Saxons tend to have difficulties with activity
(Tätigkeit, deyate'nost) and activity (Aktivität, aktivnost'). This
is why there is no concept like Bildung, because in the conduct of
life of Anglo-Saxons, there is no equivalent segmentation to which
the concept could refer, and there is no inter-concept relation where
such a distinction would be useful.

I do find the concept of "concept" problematic, because it is being
used on this list without working out just what it stands for. (in
general use, it appears like meaning that is somehow related to words.)

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