PHILOSOPHY - Language: Meaning and Language [HD]
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Kate Ritchie explores the connection between language and meaning. This video introduces two ways in which philosophers have answered the question 'what makes a sound or some marks meaningful?'.
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I think that's what happens when you advocate to individual centered analysis. If you lean on a non-individualistic perspective, you find that Grice is talking about how agency is interpreted in communication in general, and Putnam is talking about how the code structure relates to the physical world (with many steps lost in the individualistic perspective). Both are pointing semantic relations that happen coincidentally, but which appears as mutually exclusive only when you stick to an individual uttering coded language.
In Portuguese the word "manga" has two meanings. 1 - It mean the fruit mango. 2 - It means sleeves. So, if I say, "I ate a manga, and it was very sweet." then the meaning I intended for the word is fruit, but if I say, "I have a card up in my manga." then I am referring to sleeves. In this case, it is the context of the sentence which will give the word its meaning, but once we are clear about what we are talking about, the consensus is what it gives the word its meaning.
External pressures yields internal meaning
And
External pressure is rooted in collective internal experience.
Well if you look at small children just learning how to associate words to objects and phrases to situations or sentences, you can see it is heavily based on external factors. They may point to an object and call it by a different name until an adult corrects them on the terminology of their language or culture uses, not by what the child would like to call it. This is were internal can happen, as everyone in a culture or family group needs to be able to understand each other to react/function in a proper way to the sound/image/ or writing.
Their is a daycare near were I live and my cat loves to walk with me when I go out (don't ask, he just likes to...) so I sometimes have him on a lead. Some of the younger kids are so coddled by their parents they couldn't yet tell animals apart if they are similar. My cat is a large Fox cat mixed with Ragdoll and Tabby, so he looks like a small fluffy dog from a distance or if your not paying attention. Along with walking him on a lead he looks very much like a dog. Anyway, I had a few very young kids wanting to pet my "puppy" when I walk by. They've even have tried to get him to bark or howl, (which is cute).
What I'm saying is they associated my cat with the term dog, because they were taught/seen that a dog is walked, not a cat. Which normally they'd be right, but I rather my indoor cat be tethered to me if he's going to follow me down a busy street then have him ran over. Though as they get older they'll remember the lady with the meowing/purring dog. :P
This video has been super helpful, I'm studying this topic right now and find it very difficult but this really helped me get some of the basics! Thanks!
It seems to me that the meaning of a word comes through or depend on the consensus that individuals have when they say or hear the word. If you think on the same thing as I do when you hear the word "cat" then it seems to me the word cat has a meaning. The combination of syllables and vowels we use to describe a thing is always subjective and arbitrary, but once we agree on what that combination of syllables a vowels represent or says about reality then it automatically starts to have meaning.
A psychological state cannot occur without responding to something external to a living body. Similarly, something external exists but is insignificant without a corresponding psychological state. Meaning comes about when a psychological state stirs in-sync with external stimulus. Meaning is not a passive response to the external, it is simultaneous energy (synergy) between external and internal existence.
Words and sentences don't have one simple meaning that you can pin down. X speaks to Y. You can ask 'what does X mean by that sentence' and you can ask 'what does that same sentence mean to Y'. Context always matters. If the meanings are the same, X and Y have communicated effectively. Meaning is relative to the person speaking / listening.
I'm studying language philosophy right now and I'm stuck on a place where Humpty Dumpty tells Alice: that words mean what he wants them to mean.
I'm supposed to discuss what kind if philosophy fits in with Humpty Dumpty and so I wonder if it's an internalist, then.
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t - till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’
Is there any more videos of this theme? Like something about the meaning of the words alone or how happens the language acquisition by children
In Brazil and France we study languages on Saussure and Chomsky, and looks like they have a totally different approach.
By the way, as a portuguese speaker I like very much how you sound clear
Why is there even a dichotomy between these two views? We, as conscious agents, gives all words a meaning (based on learning) but that meaning will sometime differ a bit from person to person .. "water" is whatever you want water to be - H2O, XYZ.. it doesn't matter, as long as the people you're communicating with share the same understanding of the word. What water really is cant be encompassed in the word water anyway.. words are jus shorthand for the real truth
Words are signifiers for the assumed truth, potentially the real truth, depending on the subject's particular perception
Ironically while VG video doesn't understand it's own implicit self-commentatry. It Uses IMAGES not just words to make it's "meaning" or really REFERENCE clear. IOW in order to understand words we need to be able to SEE what in the world we are talking about.
I think we assign words to ideas so that would be internal. I don't buy the thought experiments because it doesn't matter what the idea is or what the word is or what the properties the thing we have ideas about are. We use the same words for the same things by mutual acceptance. What I think about the thing that I assign the word to may be different than what you think about the thing, but as long as we both know what thing corresponds to what word we can communicate.
Can't internal psychological intentions be influenced by external material conditions, including social factors and the mode of production?
that's exactly what I was thinking
Seems to be just another instance of the mind-body problem. If you are simply monist there really is no difference between psychological states and physical states.
Meaning in language exchange is co-constructed by interlocutors. Words do not mean without specific context and participant.
The externalist view is similar to wittgestein's argument that language is not private.
Assuming that they are referring to the visual appearance of beeches and not some other lovely characteristic that they could identify, what does a statement such as 'Beeches are lovely' mean in the case that the referrer knows that they don't know what beeches look like? It also occurred to me that if one knows that there exists a distinction between elms and beeches, despite not being able to differentiate between them on sight, then there must be a difference in the psychological state of the referrer when considering either and recounting that there exists a distinction.
Hmm. Better to ask: In what circumstances do sentences using 'mean' or 'meaning' make sense? There seems to be an assumption here that 'meaning' is out there waiting to be 'defined'.
So externalists, what physical object am I referring to when I say "I love art.", huh?
How does this statement not show an intention. For other things I can understand, like I understand that an elm is and an elm and not a beech, and water is water and not xyz water, but "art" is different. Two people can look at the same "work of art" like a Pollock and be in disagreement about whether this is art or just paint thrown on a very big canvas. Here I think the internalist may better explain the meaning of the sentence. When I say "I love art." I intend for you to believe that I love what I think is art.
That's an externalist argument you are giving there. You and your twin self in a twin earth might use different expressions to refer to what you (duplicated individual) are calling "art" right now.
Sure, all well and good -
Only...
What does 'meaning' mean? What does it mean to 'mean' something - to 'mean P'?
Words have meaning because we agree on the meaning. The end.
'Creature with a kidney'. I am a robot made of metal and silicon. I have a kidney in my shopping basket. I am a creature with a kidney.
VOCAL FRY
In 8:00 is this example correct? I mean if everything is duplicate, should the structure of water be duplicated too? I mean everything is the same in duplicatearth. It should be the lakes with water and with the same composition as well. I think it doesnt hold.
These are roughly kantian (internalist) and materialist (externalist) positions. What wld be a structuralist standpt in this case?
This doesn't work for me, if anything it reflects a quote by Chomsky about controlling a populace's thought limits while giving the impression of freedom. Reminds me of another quote that understanding '1' people think they understand '1+1 =2', but in truth you also have to understand 'and'. A lot of these philosophical arguments seem trapped in semantic structure rather than experience of the real world?
Grice's three conditions for meaning seem strange to me. Surely, what I say would not change meaning depending on my audience's attitude toward what I say. It seems strange to think that meaning necessitates persuasion.
Paradoxarn I agree. It may be my intention to persuade you or communicate very specific things. But communication can *fail*. Interpretation can be *mistaken*. In fact, this seems to be one of the strongest aspects of internalism: it allows for a clear distinction between what I mean by an utterance and how you interpret my utterance.
Grice's conditions don't say that meaning requires persuasion. They say it requires an intention to persuade. Undef his conditions, it is only intentions that matter, so your audience's attitude doesn't change the meaning.
An where are the other theories...
Thanks!
How can you answer meaning questions if the language you use to describe both problem and solution already exists of agreed upon meanings?
That's like using a hammer to fix said hammer.
Seems to me externalists are really internalists+. They acknowledge the the internal view but say that's not complete and they add externalist ideas. Have I got this right?
I don't think so. Externalist can acknowledge the internal view, but they disagree that meaning begins with a psychological state. The internalist want to say meaning starts from within, this is what the externalist disagrees with.
+Overonator internalists and externalists are both idiots for believing meaning or the foundation thereof is exclusively internal or external. talk about a false dichotomy
@@joebazooks It isn't a false dichotomy if the proposed states are all that can actually be. You can either exist or not exist, you would not call that a false dichotomy because these are the only known states you can be in. They meaning behind "exist" and "nonexistent" correspond to two states of the world. Nice try though.
Does a sound have to be part of a language to have meaning?
Well, that depends on the meaning of "meaning" most. And for something to get meaning I think it needs to be first observed and next interpreted. If this stream of information processing is broken, meaning will not arrive. And so for a deaf person who can't observe sound, a sound would have no meaning because it isn't observed.
It certainly doesn't seem that an utterance needs to belong to a language to have a meaning. Let's say my toddler daughter calls her favorite blanket - or even blankets in general - "wubwub." When she says "Ginme wubwub," she is asking for her blanket. She means, *give me my blanket*, even if she is talking to a babysitter that doesn't understand what she is asking for. Pragmatically and linguistically, that just seems to be what's happening. And when the babysitter brings her a glass of water, she has misinterpreted the meaning of that utterance.
doesnt words just refer to actual meaning? yellow word in itself has no meaning, it just reminds you in your head of the raw colour. that is meaning, the colour yellow MEANS yellow, it has meaning. The stupid sound we use to remind us of that in our head is the meaningless bit
Why I find stuff like this interesting rather than high school which I find no meaning
Isn't it the listener more than the speaker who creates the meaning?
Some would agree. Those interested in social semiotics don't regard words as "having" meaning (as the video repetitively puts it). Instead, they see meaning as emerging in a contextualized and dialogical way.
"III am not dEad!
I'm nOot dead"
Them the others!!
That is interesting but we don't need to use a philosopher's words and theories. Take for instance the moment when you forgot a certain word.
The meaning behind the word triggered a psychological state (let's call it that) but you just couldn't point out exactly what it was that you meant to say. It drove you partly insane, the only thing you could do to help the listener was to point out all the words he said that you didn't mean to say instead.
There is although another model besides these two which i consider to be something like 'objectivisim' and 'subjectivism' (guess which is which). The world would be a huge mess, we wouldn't even be able to function in the world without having some sort of relative certainty that another individual would be able to understand us.
So meaning is neither in fact, but a mediation between, intersubjectivity. To ease up our existencial confusion, we 'normally agree' that some things are like they are. We agree that the habitants of USA speak english as their first language. We agree that an inch is 2,5 centimeters. We agree that our most versatile form of communication is language.
It is from that agreement that psychoanalysis is able to comprehend the subjective view of the world through the use of intersubjective tools (language).
clear as mud
I notice this is what’s going on on the world today abou an utterance means p iff:
Vocal fry!
Last part is not conceivable
This was confusing
Just rewatch
ŋ?
Just say God geez
lol you said Pee
Take care about that vocal fry...