In a message dated 5/20/12 5:04:26 PM, [email protected] writes: "Cheerskep, you're lacking one feature of intellectual acuity, humor."
Whatchoo mean I lack humor?! I just got back from the gym where I had everyone in the weight-room roaring with laughter. And I once wrote a farce, and I'm tellin you I guffawed at every line I wrote. You want ludicrous, apply to me! > Since you complain about Harris overstating a trivial issue, like the > instability of signs... > No -- I complained about his celebrating his commonplace observation that the impact of an utterance depends on the context. > I wonder why you exercise the same triviality in your > constant and grim harping about meaning when everyone here and everywhere > all > the way to Tibet agrees that meaning is in the use. > The phrase (in this email's context) "The meaning is in the use" is vague beyond any utility. What's the notion behind 'meaning'? Or behind the 'in' there? Or even behind 'use'? Every utterance when uttered is, seemingly, "used". Wittgenstein's famous fiat (I paraphrase: " In a given language-community the meaning of a phrase is its use by the members of that community.") is vacuous, and, I can argue, flat wrong. If we want to communicate (in the sense of "occasion the rise, in a reader's mind, of at least a rough replica of a notion WE have in mind as we speak"), we better be good at perceiving how the phrasing we use is liable to be misconstrued by the reader. "The meaning is in the use" is a tin-mine of potential misinterpretation. Which is to say, readers' minds, in processing the ostensibly familiar sounds, can conjure a wildly varying range of notions. It's safe to say I won't be writing a "book of philosophy", but, moved by you, I'll try to post the next worse thing presently.
