[lit-ideas] Re: Beyond signalling lies nothing
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 22:52:24 EDT
Thanks. I'll take that into consideration as I meditate since I see I
committed the same mistake in my "Post the letter..." bit where I refer to
this. I'll re-read the thing, if I can. Possibly Buehler did not know the
first
thing about the function of language. Technology was very primitive in
those days. Suppose I ask Geary,
"What is the function of a fridge?"
In linguistics, we distinguish
langue
parole
It is otiose to speak of the function of Language (Sprache, Buehler would
say, with a capital).
It's speakers who fulfil functions, as it were. The emotive is possibly
drawn from Ogden/Richards. Performative is an anachronism, and we know Austin
got that from Scots law -- the 'operative' use of language he thought of
calling it. 'Descriptive' is now used for 'the king of France' -- vide Grice,
"Vacuous Names", repr. in Ostertag, "Definite DESCRIPTIONS". So one has to
be careful. But thanks for the point that the higher functions presuppose
the lower ones. Good evolutionary point.
Cheers,
Speranza
In a message dated 8/11/2011 4:17:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Bear in mind the presuppositional direction in Buehler-Popper (Buehler
supervised Popper's Phd. thesis btw) is in the opposite direction: higher
functions, like description, presuppose lower, like expressing. (Not lower
presuppose higher). Lower functions may exist without, and do not presuppose
the presence of, higher functions. [Compare: no biology without chemistry, no
chemistry without physics; but there can be physics without chemistry and
chemistry without biology: the idea of causal emergence but (logical)
irreducibility lies at the heart of all this in Popper's view].
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