For the one hundredth time. there is no is-ness to art or taste,
Only to individuals that that agree with that "at times".
mando
On Dec 23, 2008, at 5:41 PM, [email protected] wrote:
In a message dated 12/23/08 11:12:50 AM, [email protected]
writes:
"I've looked back at the archives for June '07
-- but disagree that " we did a fairly exhaustive job of discussing
that
subject. (taste)" Instead, the topic was diverted , as usual,
into your
special
concern for "is-ness"."
One of my many handicaps is slow-wittedness. This isn't false modesty;
listers know by now I don't spend a lot of time trying to look modest.
What I mean is that I need far more time than I wish to get some
new notion
serviceably right. (As a playwright, I rewrite many, many, many
times. I once
quoted here the Paul Valery line, "A poem is never finished, only
abandoned."
That certainly applies to much that I do. I have innumerable would-
be but only
half-finished forum-postings on my hard drive.)
A year and a half ago I no doubt was still stumbling around trying
to find
the best way to convey the basic confusion I was convinced I could
spot
screwing
up the whole "taste" thread. And I'm sure I'll stumble around some
more here
and now, but maybe a little less.
I brought in "is-ness" because I could see some listers obviously
felt other
listers were WRONG about "taste". "That's not what taste IS!"
I'm writing without having just reread all the postings of June
2007, but no
doubt I yammered that it was a mistake to think there was a "THE
correct
meaning of" 'taste'. No doubt I said it's an error to think there
is a
mind-independent entity that is the alleged "correct meaning". Such
an entity,
I
probably said opaquely, has no "is-ness". I have since then largely
abandoned
the
term "is-ness" on the forum.
At base, I was trying to convey that each of us has his/her own
notion in
mind when he or she uses the word 'taste' (and there's no guarantee
a person
has
the same notion every time he or she uses the word.) I get all
stirred up when
I see anyone insisting a given notion of the "meaning" of a word is
in some
way absolutely right or wrong.
Ideally, a discussion of that kind about a word perhaps might
arrive at a
consensus about the notion that is the most fruitful to have mind
with the
word.
A group might work toward that, not so they could announce they
have found
"the right definition", but simply to avoid misunderstanding. Legal
documents
are
doing that when say, "In this agreement, 'xxx' shall mean. . ." Such a
stipulative definition is not intended to make any grand ontological
statement.
For example, I have urged the listers to agree on a notion of
"meaning" such
that PEOPLE can mean -- i.e. have in mind a notion they want to
convey -- but
that inanimate objects can't mean, or refer, or designate, etc. On
that one, I
know I am fighting a steep uphill battle with people who persist in
believing
words harbor "meanings", tree-spirit-like imps that dwell within a
word,
assiduously meaning 24/7. I fight the fight because I'm sure if
it succeeded
it
would cut down on a lot of confusion.
We're most inclined to call a "definition" "wrong" when the notion is
effectively the same in the overwhelming majority of people who use
the word.
If we
saw a guy teaching English to a foreigner hold up a fork and say,
"This is
called a spoon," we'd say the teacher is wrong. If a chemist holds
up a rock
with
no carbon in it and say, "This is an organic substance," we'd say,
"That's
wrong. To be organic it has to have carbon in it. 'Organic' means
it's a
carbon
compound."
You can see how easily we slip from saying, "What chemists
mean. . ." to
"What THAT WORD means. . ." From "What educated chemists mean by
'organic' is
all
and only those substances that are carbon compounds," to "What
'organic'
means. . ."
The more abstract the ideas behind a word, the more dangerous this is.
"What Croce meant by 'art' is. . ." is probably okay if the speaker
is about
to
describe Croce's notion. But on this forum Bruce Attah was inclined
to say,
"Art
IS. . ." and "The meaning of 'art' ISb&" Attah was wrong, but not
because his
definition was "wrong". His error lay in believing that words
"refer to",
designate, denote, that they can "have a meaning" in some absolute,
mind-independent sense, and that for the word 'art', he had
discovered that
meaning.
Certainly one's impulse is to say, "The term 'Eiffel Tower' refers to,
denotes, names, a certain iron structure in Paris." And, because
the Eiffel
Tower is
so singular and concrete, so non-abstract, that's a very serviceable
sentence. Very strictly speaking, however, it's an error. Words are
inert,
insensate.
When a contemplator looks at a word, his mind races, retrieving
associations
remaining from times when he'd previously seen the word. All the
action is by
his brain, none by the word.
But then I should emphasize that the vast majority of people in the
same
language community "learned" everyday words in the same way -- e.g.
'Banana',
'It
is raining', 'hungry', 'blue'. Because of similar experiences as
they
originally heard the word, the remembered associations with the
word are the
same
sorts of things in almost all the minds of that community. Thus
when all those
people hear the word, serviceably the same notion will arise in
each mind. So
please know I believe words are the great majority of the time a
nifty tool
for
communicating. You will bring tears to my eyes if you claim I say it's
utterly impossible to communicate anything. Even an "abstract"
notion can be
serviceably conveyed if it's described in detail enough.
