Dear Terry and colleagues,
"Language is rather the special case, the most unusual communicative
adaptation to ever have evolved, and one that grows out of and depends
on informationa/semiotic capacities shared with other species and with
biology in general."
Let me try to argue in favor of "meaning", "language", and "discursive
knowledge", precisely because they provide the "differentia specifica"
of mankind. "Meaning" can be provided by non-humans such as animals or
networks, but distinguishing between the information content and the
meaning of a message requires a discourse. The discourse enables us to
codify the meaning of the information at the supra-individual level.
Discursive knowledge is based on further codification of this
intersubjective meaning. All categories used, for example, in this
discussion are codified in scholarly discourses. The discourse(s)
provide(s) the top of the hierarchy that controls given the cybernetic
principle that construction is bottom up and control top-down.
Husserl uses "intentionality" and "intersubjective intentionality"
instead of "meaning". Perhaps, this has advantages; but I am not so sure
that the difference is more than semantic. In Cartesian Meditations
(1929) he argues that this intersubjective intentionality provides us
with the basis of an empirical philosophy of science. The sciences do
not begin with observations, but with the specification of expectations
in discourses. A predator also observes his prey, but in scholarly
discourses, systematic observations serve the update of codified (that
is, theoretical) expectations.
Best,
Loet
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