[lit-ideas] Re: Does the sign say its own sense? An Austrian example

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:30:47 +0100 (BST)




----- Original Message -----
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>


>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:>



In other words, perhaps, JLS took one look at "sign", in the case of a small 
innocent town somewhere, and went off the deep-end into scholasticism.

(If that town is twinned with "Hell" then they may form an exclamation 
appropriate to some of JLS' posts).

>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).>

If W is suggesting that a sign may 'say' (or be treated as saying), then I see 
nothing wrong in it - or odd. No more wrong or odd than a person saying 'Can't 
you see what the sign says?'.

For the sense or meaning or content of a sign may be tranlated into something 
we can 'say' - like "Smoking forbidden". We simply take 'say' in a wide sense 
to encompass 'what may be said' (if translated into words). If we are 
scholastically bothered, we can do away with 'say' here and instead say 'Is the 
sense of a sign signed by the sign?' - but this comes to the same thing as 
'Does the sign say its own sense?' imo. There is no philosophically important 
"stretch" here that operates to W's discredit - on the contrary, in this regard 
W's POV shows an admirable lack of scholasticism and the obscurantism that 
lurks behind such scholasticism. His remarks as to the interchangability of 
modes of expression - so that words, and sign-language and pictorial signs etc 
can be used to perform the same deeds [and have the same sense] - seem worth 
mentioning, not least because they may be correct.

JLS' tendency to spark off 'what is said' in posts, and then shoot off like a 
Catherine Wheel, does not help generally nor help the Gricean cause. He also 
has a notable habit of converting 'what is said' into a claim that is not 'what 
is said' but even its opposite or some contrary offshoot ['Donal claims 'The 
sign says its own sense'']

Dnl
Ldn
Look away now if you do not want a soccer sign
M U 4 Evton 4 [FT]

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