In a message dated 8/4/10 12:36:17 PM, [email protected] writes:
> I think you are assuming a great deal about the community that you > have > no evidence for. The cmmunity as described by W is very small,the builder > and his assistant. I think that to extend community to include a number of > people who are not discussed by W and whose presence in the problem is > introduced by you is a bad argument. > Kate Sullivan > That's a nice point, Kate. I confess it never occurred to me that LW was not using 'community' in the way suggested by the usual dictionary definitions of a "community". I did believe that by using 'community' intended to be introducing all those who live in the same locale/town/principalityu. I don't say this archly, but I feel such a confusion is consonant with my assertion that there is no "THE meaning of" any word whatever. What word do you suppose LW would have used if he intended to convey not two people but the town/locale in which the builder lives? Why do you think your interpretation -- LW had in mind only a two-person "community" -- is not, in its presumption, the stuff of an argument equally as "bad" as mine? Restated: You believe that, because LW mentions only two people, that proves that the two people must be his idea of "the community". How do you know he didn't have in mind the town/locale? If you believe that it would be absurd for LW to believe the whole town uniformly entertains the same notion of 'slab' as the builder and his assistant do, and that LW was not an absurd man, so that proves LW must have had in mind any two (or more) people in a conversation where they "understand each other", consider the further absurdities that would entail for LW's view. If a third person enters the room, and hears the builder say, "Slab!" , this third person, on first hearing, would not realize that "the meaning of" the utterance is "get a slab and bring it to me", so he would not be a member of this "community". Over the next few minutes, Third garners what's on the builder's mind when he says "Slab!" When he does that he becomes a member of the community. Let's say a group of thirty more townspeople come into the room to watch the builder at work. The builder says, "Slab!" There are thirty blank looks. Third cries, "I can see you people are not members of this community!" Asked why he says that, Third responds, "It's obvious that the meaning of "community" is "any group of two or more people who use words with the same notion in mind." Thirty more blank looks. And then some objections. "That's baloney! We're all members of this community called Springfield!" Etc. I repeat: LW was very weak in realizing when a key word he used was liable to occasion a wild variety of notions in his audience.
