> And to answer your question, words in a closed book are not words but
> marks. We endow words with meaning when we read them, not the other way
> around.
>
Daniel, I'm somewhat puzzled by this: do the 'marks' spontaneously assemble
themselves, awaiting for meanings to be conferred? Words are endowed with
meaning by usage, as when pronounced, heard, remembered, and written, all of
which must happen before they are read.
> When we
> are analysizing the meanings of words, we are not doing language, indeed
> these words are no longer really words but case studies in the analysis of
> mind.
And again you are sounding out a Logos it seems, or Plato as refloated via
Chomsky. 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously' may appear to articulate a
logical structure, but the meaning it carries is nonsense, a mad language of
absolutist logic, arbitrary as pure theorems of form, subserving its
auditors with biblical repetitions of blind faith and Order, Order is All.
Poetry happens in the impredictable, which is why philosopher-kings desired
it banished from the terse command structures of their lacaedamonian
Republic.
And there is nothing more primitive than the demand for obedience.
Tyrranos saw us, tyrranosaur. Lizard-headed deus.
david
----- Original Message -----
From: Daniel Jab <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2001 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: statement
> I think you should read the reponse I sent to our friend in China. When we
> are analysizing the meanings of words, we are not doing language, indeed
> these words are no longer really words but case studies in the analysis of
> mind. And to answer your question, words in a closed book are not words
but
> marks. We endow words with meaning when we read them, not the other way
> around.
>
> d
>
>
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2001 07:26:43 +1100, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> >>My statements were referring more to
> >>philosophical nature of language. How it stands in itself, not how it
> used.
> >>There is a big difference.
> >
> >I don't know how language exists outside its usages. How can it? Are
> >words unread on a page language (I suppose they were used by the one who
> >put them there)? If a tree falls...
> >
> >
> >A
|