[lit-ideas] The Chicken and the Egg
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 21:28:52 EDT
Act/Object
In a message dated 8/11/2004 5:26:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
As a text it seems to me that the computer program should be
treated as any other text, although there are many who argue
that since it is not directed at communicating something
to other human beings it is not entitled to such protections.
(That's usually where the claim that a program is a device
arises.)
--- This may relate to Grice's "mean". He would say (and I read Searle
arguing for this) that a computer programme "means" _naturally_. While human
communicators "mean" non-naturally (and thus 'communicate'). But the
distinction
is troublesome. A thermostat is usually chosen as an example of a device that
_naturally_ means what it indicates (as black clouds 'mean' rain). For Grice
-- in "Meaning Revisited", in Studies in the Way of Words -- there is actually
a continuum between 'natural' and 'non-natural' meaning anyway...
------
As a process, on the other hand, it seems to me that a computer
program should only be regulated in the same way that other
processes---like writing or printing or speaking---that produces
signs or symbols are regulated.
I hope that there are others on the list who can direct me
to discussions that relate to this concern of mine.
--- This may be related to, again, Grice's commentary on the act/object
distinction. His Paul Carus Lectures he titled, "The conception of value", and
noted that he was intentionally playing on the 'ambiguity' of 'conception'. A
conception can be in the conceiving, or it can be a _conceptus_. Ditto for
'implicature', where he would distinguish between the 'implicating' and the
'implicatum'. I'm not sure a nominalist would accept such distinctions though.
Take love -- there's 'loving' -- and there's the lover and the beloved. But
essentially, there's _loving_ (the process). Without the process there would be
no 'product', no object, and no subject either.
(There is a related discussion in aesthetics, where some theorists aim to
define art in terms of the artists's _performance_ while others focus on the
'object d'art' -- Geary has written extensively on this in "The Chicken and the
Egg: A Philosophical Dialogue" -- Memphis Press).
Cheers,
JL
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