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Do you know what the word "tree" means? I suppose we all do. When we ask "what does the word "tree" mean?" it is not that we are unclear about its meaning but we want to understand the properties of how such a sound can mean anything? We want to investigate its logical properties, as a symbol, not for what is supposed to stand for. Now obviously we must use language to do this but the point that I was making is that taken as a symbol and investigated in respect to its properties as a symbol we are using it as a case study into an investigation of how meaning comes about in the mind. We are "treating" it, in analyzing its symbolic properties in relation to the impression and the re-cognition of it as "meaning" what it stands for. In regards to linguistic articulation, yes baby talk, art forms, animal calls, are all linguistic articulation. This is all language. I am not certain how you see the conformance of language to the logical structure of facts as being an article of faith. It seems fairly obvious that language conforms to the logical structure of the world. I can not be driving a truck and riding a bicycle at the same time, and if i said so, you would immediately know that this could not be. You do not know this because of any language rule that states this, but because of the logical structure of our existence. This is also logical grammar. And that you see Wittgenstien as treating a very small problem of our existence shows that you have yet to appreciate the extent to which logic and language encapsulate our world. As he said himself, "the limits of my language are the limits of my world". daniel On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 07:25:13 +1100, [log in to unmask] wrote: >Are you having fun, Daniel? I'm inclined to Robin's "bemused horror": I >can't work out what you're talking about, largely, I suspect, because you >don't really know. You are not, er, very logical: especially in ignoring >that when "we ask what a word is", we are using language to ask what it >is. > >I don't know how you can distinguish between "logical Grammar" and >"language" on the one hand and language as it is actually used; your >statement that there is no articulation except linguistic articulation is >outrageous, ask any animal, painter or baby. Have a look at a few Rodin >sculptures. Are you attempting to talk about the neurological structures >of the brain and how they affect language?? - such structures are hardly >immutable, as Darwin pointed out, though very interesting - at another >point you seem to be saying that the temporal nature of our existence, >that we do things one thing after another, is "logical grammar": but >really, you seem to be talking about articles of faith rather than >arguments. > >The main point of value of Wittgenstein for me (and I do indeed find him >very interesting) is that he points out with acid clarity the _limits_ of >language and logic, which as he says in Tractatus, cover a very small >problem of existence. "The rest," he said famously, "must be passed over >in silence". Poetic disobedience for me lies in prodding that silence. > >> We endow words with meaning when we read them, not the other way >>around. > >Well, that was what I was saying. > >Best > >Alison