Grice? — Banno

Apparently. Didn't know who that was.

So that's not uncontroversial. — Banno

The problem seems to stem from "language use in thought" but I thought we were talking about utterances. Aka language use in communication. In that case the difference between intended and interpreted meaning seems clear no?

What an author intends by an utterance can vary over time, as that utterance is put to other uses. — Banno

What the author intended at a certain instance of using an utterance doesn't change though.

So for example, when I first read "grice" at the start of your comment I thought you were making some sort of pun about rice, so checked the previous comments in case there was any context I was missing. In this case the interpreted meaning was clearly different from the intended meaning.

If in the future you use "grice" to make some sort of pun about rice, the fact that this current instance of grice use was intended to refer to a british philosopher does not change.

NOS4A2 appears to think that there are two meanings to a given expression, that of the speaker and that of the listener, roughly the second response I described in my first reply here: "the meaning is some subjective response in their own mind". Nos says "meaning is generated at two or more different places, from two or more different perspectives, each furnished with their own levels of understanding", but what is happening is that the utterance is being used at two different places, for two different things. We don't have two distict uses, and a change in meaning, but just two differing uses. This should help dissipate the nonsense of "meaning never breaches the skull" and so on; no mysterious private mental substance that can't leak out of your ears - just what we do with words.

I seem to think that there are two meanings to a given expression, but you seem to think there are two different uses of a given expression. Apparently “the utterance is being used at two different places, for two different things”, “just two different uses”, except that the listener is not using any utterance. He is not doing anything with words. He’s listening to articulated guttural sounds, and no matter their use or context, he is supplying this activity with his own meaning, derived from his own understanding of the language and how it is used.

You give us an example. I have never said “there are two different meanings to a given expression”, and in fact said meaning is generated “every time it is expressed or understood”, which implies two separate acts. Two separate acts generates two separate accounts of what the meaning is, by virtue of there being two people involved. So it’s no surprise that, despite the lack of usage on the one hand and the contradictory use on the other, you came to believe I thought along the same lines as your bad faith usage of my utterances permitted. You devised your meaning first, then twisted the usage to fit it—the usage is in the meaning.

There seems to be some ambiguity with regard to meaning vis-à-vis sign and referent. The mercurial nature of meaning isn't always a function of time and even if it is, it's a vacuous truth.

The assumption of static meanings is a foundational axiom of epistemology. If that axiom is rejected, then there cannot be a substantial and objective notion of epistemic error, beliefs cannot be identified with mental states and people can only be said to make predictions.

Second-order skepticism about the existence of static meaning is antithetical to first-order skepticism about the truth of our theories. The way I look at it, not only do we have Gettier problems, we cannot even be certain that we really have Gettier problems!

Perhaps it simply goes undercover in times of ignorance, thus preserving itself from those who seek only gain with little to contribute or show after the fact, to be later salvaged by those preserved by the very same...

The way I look at it, not only do we have Gettier problems, we cannot even be certain that we really have Gettier problems! — sime

:rofl:

The assumption of static meanings is a foundational axiom of epistemology. If that axiom is rejected, then there cannot be a substantial and objective notion of epistemic error, beliefs cannot be identified with mental states and people can only be said to make predictions.

Second-order skepticism about the existence of static meaning is antithetical to first-order skepticism about the truth of our theories. — sime

:up:

Everything in time is created and destroyed in due time. If meaning was at any point created in time then in time it should be destroyed or in other words forgotten. The potential for meaning on the other hand always persists with time, which means it can rise again in due time.

As long as humans exist then human meaning will also persist although it may not persist in pristine form. The original meaning may be lost, mangled, or dead, but memes reproduce and adapt to new minds where the pressure of evolution holds as well as in any other place or time.

Some or perhaps most of the meaning held by prehistoric people about things in their world is completely and probably irretrievably lost today. The meanings or words from dead languages we've never even heard about, extinct religious and cultural systems of meaning are no more. Meaning will come and go, but it always keeps on coming and going.

If, in the OP, you used the word "mean" to mean what I think you mean by it, and if its meaning has not changed in the meantime, then this means that its meaning can persist over time.

Isn't it true that meaning persists over time and everything else that happens in the meantime is separate and distinct from what language itself has to convey? — Shawn

Since everything occurs in time, asking whether something occurs in time is superfluous. The question "does meaning persist over time" is the same question as "does meaning exist." Exist being to persist in the now.

That is, if meaning doesn't persist over time without identifying how long must transpire, there'd be a loss of meaning in the milliseconds after the words left your mouth. We don't need to go all the way back to Plato just to impose the element of time into the equation.

Since everything occurs in time — Hanover

Or does it? How could one have ascertained that which encompasses all being without theoretically placing oneself outside of it... is this not how "time" was discovered and differentiate from the falsehood or "current understanding" that must have existed prior to its discovery? People fail to ask themself these questions.

No, you're taking the time element too literally. What I meant was that if meaning can be lost or altered (think reification of terms of words), then is it possible that meaning can alter over time. I mean, norms do change, and with that meaning too, yes?

The assumption of static meanings is a foundational axiom of epistemology. If that axiom is rejected, then there cannot be a substantial and objective notion of epistemic error, beliefs cannot be identified with mental states and people can only be said to make predictions. — sime

Can you say exactly what constitutes a "static" meaning for you here? How long must it remain static? And how static must it remain- completely static? Mostly static? At least a little bit static?

I believe that's true, or how you interpreted the OP. But, I'm still apprehensive to claim that meaning consists of use, what do you think?

, you're taking the time element too literally — Shawn

I'm not sure I am. If the argument is that time corrupts meaning due to whatever social, personal, or whatever changes occur, it's correct to assume some degree of change during any expanse of time, which is to invoke an ineffabilty to some degree between what is said and what is meant.

Time, (i.e. intervening events), is just one corrupting influence, as if think limited communicative skills in first place would be the primary one.

But, take Banno and busycuttingcrap argument for example, who inspired me to make this thread. That meaning is use...

If meaning is indeed use, then would it be possible that things once said, now could mean different things?

So, there is something mysterious about meaning after all? — Shawn

At some level I think there is. As a second job I have worked as a journalist. I tired hard to write pellucid prose. My meaning seemed clear. But no... that is naive. People interpret 'the meaning' in different ways. What might be intended as a progressive idea might be interpreted as a conservative one depending on how the reader relates to or understands your concepts. I hold a view that people have visceral, emotional reactions to words and concepts that transcend the usage of a word.

So, there is something mysterious about meaning after all?

I seem to have answered your question before you asked it. What does that mean? :wink:

I seem to have answered your question before you asked it. — Tom Storm

It'll be because you are in Australia. We live ten or more hours in the future. Most of the folk here haven't yet even gotten to Christmas eve, and by the time they do Santa will have already visited us.

What @Tom Storm seems to be alluding to is that we have beetles in boxes, pace Wittgenstein...

What I'm alluding to is that there's something about intension that hides behind the words that are then interpreted. But, I already know your answer in that there's nothing more than what is said when someone says it.

What Tom Storm seems to be alluding to is that we have beetles in boxes, pace Wittgenstein... — Shawn

I don't think I'm making a private language argument. Some people will comprehend the nuances, especially if those people inhabit the same time and culture. Or have a historical understanding of it. But the chances of them understanding references, conventions, values and even some meanings are diminished by time and cultural differences. I think this process is built into all human communication. There's a reason for the expression, 'Some jokes don't travel.'

Most of the folk here haven't yet even gotten to Christmas eve, and by the time they do Santa will have already visited us. — Banno

I think it's clear that Santa is the guarantor of all human meaning and morality.

I'm sorry to know we don't have a linguist in the forum.

I only mentioned the beetle in a box because of the mention of what you alluded to as some aspect of meaning that isn't expressed, the intensionality that is.

What the speaker intension and the receivers interpretation. But, things like this happen every day, so it's not a surprise to me.

Anyway, carry on. :smile:

Seemingly I am for the notion that meaning persists over time. Namely, if Plato's Dialogues translation, still conveys the same meaning as it did some two millennia ago, then why would anyone think that meaning doesn't persist over time. — Shawn

Every product of culture, without exception, must be continually reinterpreted for each era. This goes for music, art, literature, history, science and philosophy. There is no getting back to some veridical original meaning. History is repurposed from the perspective of current thinking and concerns.

Sure, meaning can be altered by time. But, more often than not the original meaning holds true over time also.

No. Meaning doesn't persist over time.

The world around us evolves over time. The language we use to describe it also evolves over time. And the culture in which language is contextualised too evolves over time.

Take the word "Dog" for example. Now it means something concrete.

But consider 10, 000 years in the future when languages exchange sounds, written text and usage. Assuming humans still exist, English likely won't - At least not in any form familiar to us at present. Dogs too will have evolved. And our culture will likely be very different - perhaps dogs will have been replaced with something that is more "man's best friend" than the humble canine.

The alphabet may change. And if it doesnt, the words we use most definitely will. As they have done so in the past steadily with time.

Information has an attrition rate. It is lost with time. Because memory is lost with time as well as the means to decipher it (language and context). If I write a book describing life in 2022/23 and store it somewhere safe for thousands of years, the linguistic experts of the future will at most establish an interpretative rough guide - a vague meaning, for what I said.

If we could decode the first writings of the earliest humans as they meant it then we could reasonably assume the same of future generations. But we cannot with 100% confidence. So we cannot assume the future will be the same.

The only things that may stand the test if time is mathematics and physics formulae. They are reasonably consistent with the observable universe and its innate mechanism. The words we use to describe that may be the only access future civilisations have to our language and its application in a broader sense.

In that way poetry and metaphorical language will likely be the first meaning to be lost. Mathematics and formal language the last, assuming there isn't a Copernican revolution in our understanding of the the universe in the meantime that alienates former Thought.

Mother, bark and spit are just three of 23 words that researchers believe date back 15,000 years, making them the oldest known words. — Seeker