[lit-ideas] Re: True alarms
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2011 07:39:34 EST
In a message dated 1/16/2011 1:43:36 A.M. , jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx
writes:
To me, black clouds mean God is angry
----
Yes, this was what Herodotus thought. But unlike Geary, Herodotus
patronised. He was writing (writing is a manner of speaking, when you saw him
mangling those parchments) at a time when nobody believed that 'signs' were
'signals from the gods'.
The problem with the Greek early semiotic is that since they had so many
gods, the signs were then naturally 'ambiguous'. Was that a _fart_ by Zeus,
or an orgasm by his wife? Etc.
--- In the end, Aristotle resolved the crisis. No: signs cannot but mean
but 'phantasmata' in the mind of he who utters.
Zeus's favourite sign was the eagle. Thus, the interpretation of the flight
of an eagle was considered very important. Galen, a physician, was
concerned more with 'spots' on people's skins, which he thought _meant_
things,
too -- 'omens' of some bad disease.
In those days, everything was _meant_ in Greek. With the occupation of
Greece by Rome, things started to change. By the time of Oxford and Grice,
people were meaning in English a lot more frequently.
Still, there is room for variance. Black clouds can mean the _wrath_ of
god, or the _anger_ of God.
In Italian, 'to mean' is to make signs -- signi-fy, significare --. This
poses the question as how a cloud can make anything but _water_.
While a 'meaner' presupposes an addressee, it is odd to think that a black
cloud (signifying divine wrath) could have meant the same thing to a
tyranosaurus rex or to a stone in Wales, say. To a stone, a black cloud
possibly
does not mean anything.
Grice was fascinated by all the bullshit that Peirce made out of this:
icon, index, sign-proper, symbol. "Too italianate," Grice thought. And stuck
with 'mean'.
The Italians -- and French post-structuralists -- objected: there is NO
such thing as 'natural' meaning: all meaning is CULTURAL. It is a matter of
the _mind_ ("mean" and "mind" are cognate).
If a black cloud can be a FALSE alarm of a storm, Geary is right, though
that it is ALWAYS the true alarm of the wrath of god -- for the believers
amongst us.
Cheers,
Speranza
Bordighera, etc.
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