[lit-ideas] Re: Does the sign say its own sense? An Austrian example
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:13:25 -0400 (EDT)
>You see that the subject line:
>"The sign says its own sense"
>becomes jargonistic
McEvoy:
""Jargonistic"? What the subject-heading perhaps does is play on the idea
of "sign" generally [as per semantics] and the more specific meaning of
"sign" as in "road sign" "town name sign" etc: this invites whether the
principles of the sense of the latter are different to those of other signs.
Do I _really_ have to suggest again that, for W, it is a true of all
"signs" [insofar as 'what-is-said' is constituted by 'signs'] that their sense
is
not _said_ or stated in the sign? (If so, give me a sign. FFS.)
....This is not my claim. It is my claim that W _denies_ _this_ claim.
Also I am at a loss to how you think W aims to do away with 'signs' in his
account of sense?
Signing off,
---
By jargon, I guess, I was thinking about Hobbes. Take any treatise in
'scholastic' philosophy, although Hobbes claimed he was beyond that, and you
find things like:
signs get divided into:
'natural'
and
'conventional'.
Think of all the jargon that Peirce derived from that: his extremely
complicated ('jargonistic' is the word) taxonomy of signs, and recall that
Grice's unpublished "Lectures on Peirce", which I've quoted here and
elsewhere,
start with the idea that anglophone philosophers should forget about 'sign'
(a Latinism) and stick with 'mean'.
Try to restate the subject line using "mean". I suggest (although I don't
_Buy_ "Mean"):
"For any utterance, x, by the uttering of which an utterer U means that p,
(then) it is not the case that the utterer is thereby explicating (rather
than implicating) that p".
Tell me what can be more jargonistic than that.
You see, for Grice, there are no signs, but sign-ers.
Utterers.
The barometer MEANS that the humidity is this and that. Here 'means' is
used in 'scare quotes', because a barometer does not mean.
Similarly, a black cloud does not 'mean' rain: clouds don't 'mean'. A
rainbow does not 'mean' that there was a previous rain.
Smoke does not 'mean' fire.
And so on.
Grice allowed that we can use 'mean' like that because he thought people
use 'mean' like that, and that was sacrosanct.
So, if we are talking about 'human', say, signalling.
We have a RATIONAL agent, who displays a 'sign' -- an utterance. We have to
distinguish between x (utterance token) and X (utterance type):
"Smoking forbidden" is an utterance TYPE.
But a SPECIFIC sign, in, say, a particular site, is an utterance TOKEN. We
don't need to buy the type-token distinction, but we may.
The sense is possibly the proposition, or content, "p", which I suggested
we see in terms of "PREDICATE" logic.
"Smoking forbidden" is not a simple "p"
It requires the idea of intentional action, "to smoke", the point about
legality (rather than morality) and an intended audience, or addressee, that
happens to be the one who may or may not smoke.
----
I have not checked with the Austrian example in particular, because I
thought McEvoy was making a point about Witters, rather than this F-ing city.
---- (But I should).
What Witters thought was immaterial. He was possibly wrong!
----
Since 'say' is quite a stretch when speaking of signs which can be
'visual'. Like the sign of a cigarette as crossed out, meaning, "Smoking
forbidden". It would be odd to say that the sign "says", never mind its own
"sense"
(whatever that is).
So, yes, if we accept the jargon, then you may go on to suggest that
Witters said it was wrong, or something.
Or else you may provide yet another (perhaps even Austrian, too) example.
And so on.
For Grice, and for me, most of the time, communication (where 'meaning'
lies) is the interaction between rational beings for the purporse of
psi-transfer ("p" being the content of an act of communication). "Do not smoke,
please!", and so on. To transfer this original scenario to others is a stretch
that may serve a purpose.
I, like Grice, happen to be sort-of-Darwinistic, in that I do hold (like
Grice did) that animals 'mean', or mean. But the complexities of human lingo
are such that all reconstructions of 'communications' by species other
than the 'rational' (so-called) one are a bother. This has to do with the
intricate network of intentions and their recognitions that plays an essential
role, for Grice and me, in 'meaning' as we know it.
---- In even more abstract terms, like this or that 'philosophical' example
("does a sign say its own sense?") the stretch may be less obvious but
still there. Or not.
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts: