Wittgenstein once wrote something like this. How can I know what you are thinking when I only have access to the signs in your talk? Here comes the answer put as another question: How can I know what I'm thinking since I too only have access to my signs or words? And in Zettel, § 140: "Ever and again comes the thought that what we see of a sign is only the outside of something within, in which the real operations of sense and meaning go on". But there is no outside hiding something. There are no meaningbodies – "Bedeutungskörper" – parallelling our expressions or signs.

One different kind of parallel does come to mind. Equivalence classes of expressions that have approximately the same function might serve to explain translation. "Find Y in language B that serves (basically, close enough) the same purpose as X in language A." Even in the same language, one can be asked to "translate" a philosophical thought, for instance. So "what do you mean?" is like "can you say that (the 'same' thing) in a different way?"

It seems to me that the default view, which hides in the background, has to be dragged into the light in order to be recognized as a functioning and hobbling prejudice. Derrida's criticism of phonocentrism can be use more generally to criticize a certain conception of signs and words in general.

The feelings of the mind, expressing things naturally, constitute a sort of universal language which can then efface itself.

I take these to be 'godgiven' concepts, glowing identically from a single eternity for a inner eye that makes the human truly human. Softer versions of this might acknowledge that it takes time for the soul to remember its inheritance, with the help of a semantic midwife perhaps.

In every case, the voice is closest to the signified, whether it is determined strictly as sense ( thought or lived ) or more loosely as thing. All signifiers, and first and foremost the written signifier, are derivative with regard to what would wed the voice indissolubly to the mind or to the thought of the signified sense...

Is the voice truly so central here ? Or is it the interactive physical presence of the teacher ? How about an adept and a novice who only use sign language ? Compared to an autodidact who only uses sound recordings ? The temptation is to create a triangle of speech, writing, idea. Both speech and writing are thought of as clothing or husk. To be fair, there is still something seemingly immaterial even in equivalence classes. Or is there?

...absolute proximity of voice and being, of voice and the meaning of being, of voice and the ideality of meaning.We already have a foreboding that phonocentrism merges with...the meaning of being in general as presence...

To me this gets us back to the difficulty of talking about being and ideality and consciousness by means of a structural organ. Maybe we dodge this embarrassing situation by taking on faith or as an axiom what's being dragged into the light here. "Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all..." The sign is understood to be like a coin, with a conventional public face, conventionally established, and a profoundly private and yet necessarily shared internal face. "As the face of pure intelligibility, it refers to an absolute logos to which it is immediately united. This absolute logos was an infinite creative subjectivity in medieval theology : the intelligible face of the sign remains turned toward the word and the face of God."

Personally I'd like to know if anyone else has been struck with a strong sense of just how foggy sense tends to be. — green flag

Present.

:)

All I know is that they mean with guesses at what they mean -- I certainly don't know how they mean, and at times doubt that they mean but immediately recant as the expression makes sense in the moment of the saying.

Could you say more ? I've always had trouble (ain't it ironic?) feeling understood on this issue. It'd be great to wring out some solidarity.

Well, I can try! I don't think meaning is an easy subject to discuss. Some difficulties:

It has a self-referential quality -- what we say is an example of the phenomenon being explored, and so in the act we can make new examples that break old rules, even the rules that we may supply ourselves.

Presuming rules even matter in the matter of meaning, which seems doubtful but it's a place to begin.

And this is true even if we don't find counter-examples in a given discussion -- given that language has an infinite number of possible iterations, one might even predict that every theory of meaning has a counter-example, and the successful theories of meaning are theories for which we haven't found the counter-examples yet ;).

And in the midst of deliberation, we could claim that a given sentence is "meaningless", so it doesn't count against a theory of meaning. (it's easy to find ways to "save" a pet theory of meaning)

Then there's the possibility of undermining ourselves in the same manner that we might be suspicious of:

If one ends up convinced that signs get their meaning from their relationships with other signs, then one ends up suspicious about terms like 'consciousness' and 'being' and 'qualia.' It's not a simple matter of denial. It's rather a sense that people don't know what they are talking about, and (often enough) they don't know that they don't know what they are talking about. — green flag

If it's possible for others to not know that they do not know, how can I know that I do know? Especially when meaning seemed so simple and easy this whole time, almost as if it were given, and now it seems impossible to determine?


Which says a lot about my doubts and difficulties. Maybe that'll be enough to the task of feeling like we understand one another :) -- though it certainly didn't help in answering the question of meaning.

It has a self-referential quality -- what we say is an example of the phenomenon being explored, and so in the act we can make new examples that break old rules, even the rules that we may supply ourselves. — Moliere

:up:

Good point. Philosophy seems to me like exactly that kind of self-referential insanity, the cat trying to catch its tail.

It seems to me that we could clarify the word 'meaning' forever. And we can only send strings of words to do so. And that's how the glorious bots see the world, only as a chains of words. I know that there is a something more than language in human existence, but how the chains of words refer is not so clear...

If it's possible for others to not know that they do not know, how can I know that I do know? Especially when meaning seemed so simple and easy this whole time, almost as if it were given, and now it seems impossible to determine? — Moliere

I don't think we ever know exactly what we mean, which means I don't know exactly what I mean when I say that. But if I keep trading strings of words with you, we might both walk away with a sense that we are in on a blurry but significant realization together. I'd call this a phenomenon. It's beyond the external/internal talk. It's there in the lifeworld to be noticed, foregrounded with the right string of words.

And in the midst of deliberation, we could claim that a given sentence is "meaningless", so it doesn't count against a theory of meaning. (it's easy to find ways to "save" a pet theory of meaning) — Moliere

Yes. It's all too easy to cheat and make excuses. Old fashioned virtues like honesty and courage have no small place here. We've got to be willing to suffer wounds .... which is probably made possible because identity is not too invested in this or that theory but rather in the image of the self as courageous and honest and willing to let its pet theories die. So a higher and better narcissism, which is open to all members willing to follow the rules, tames a lesser, lonelier kind.

It's as if philosophers share the same ego ideal of honest courage that tarries with the negative in the name of the positive.

While structuralism suggests one kind of ambiguity, metaphoricity suggests another. In short, we are savages trading hieroglyphics.

Lakoff and Hofstadter both write that cognition is metaphorical, but the idea is older. In the narrower context of metaphysics, Anatole France had a character make the case.

I was thinking how the Metaphysicians, when they make a language for themselves, are like … knife-grinders, who instead of knives and scissors, should put medals and coins to the grindstone to efface … the value… When they have worked away till nothing is visible in these crown pieces, neither King Edward, the Emperor William, nor the Republic, they say: ‘These pieces have nothing either English, German, or French about them; we have freed them from all limits of time and space; they are not worth five shillings any more ; they are of inestimable value, and their exchange value is extended indefinitely. — Garden of Epicurus by Anatole France

The idea is to examine metaphysical terms etymologically and find the original metaphors. Ideas turn out to be images. The soul turns out to be breath. And so on. The referee blows her whistle at this point, because we are on the verge of the etymological fallacy. Or are we ? Once 'image' is used enough in a new way, a new 'concept' is indeed created (perhaps as this new way of using an old word.) So the 'hieroglyphic' for image is now understood to refer to something like a FORM. In the same way, the word 'breath' can lose its association with lungs and air and become consciousness or the subject.

Metaphysical words aren't meaningless, but their status is strange. They float over an abyss, one might say. How is their meaning to be grounded ? If it all ?

The critique of phonocentrism also detaches (elusively pure) "meaning" from the voice. If what is poured in the ear is mostly signs evoking images, we like to drink our hieroglyphs with the mouths on the side of our face.

Metaphysical words aren't meaningless, but their status is strange. They float over an abyss, one might say. How is their meaning to be grounded ? If it all ? — green flag

Is "grounded" the right relationship to seek? And if so, what even is grounding?

I usually just take meaning as basic. Being a competent speaker of a language means knowing meanings, and we seem able to use English. It's us that knows what words mean. In fact, sometimes we're even something like the gods of meaning, creating words ex nihilo -- a strike against the structuralists.

The critique of phonocentrism also detaches (elusively pure) "meaning" from the voice. If what is poured in the ear is mostly signs evoking images, we like to drink our hieroglyphs with the mouths on the side of our face. — green flag

Derrida is in the back of my mind. In particular there's a difference between the meaning of the sign, or writing in the small sense, and meaning, or writing in the large sense. Writing can be taken as primary to speech, where speech is phono-centric writing.

At which point -- how do we know what the sign is? Isn't it that which is always-already meaningful?

And if everything is text, writing in the large sense, that too is meaningful. Meaning overflows our signs. Writing is a chasing after, a drawing a trace within a meaningful world using the pen we all have, our body -- in whatever capacity.

Which goes further to highlight how difficult it is to come up with a general notion of the sign. Even those without writing in the small sense manage to communicate meaning in the large sense. What could a sign possibly be, given how widespread meaning is in this set up?

Is "grounded" the right relationship to seek? And if so, what even is grounding? — Moliere

Beautiful question. Because 'ground' is a metaphor. We want our feet on the ground.

But perhaps we could talk of them hanging from the ceiling ?

I usually just take meaning as basic. Being a competent speaker of a language means knowing meanings, and we seem able to use English. — Moliere

But we are back to grounds and foundations this way :

'Basic' => 'base '= > "bottom of anything considered as its support, foundation, pedestal"
https://www.etymonline.com/word/BASIC

Is taking meaning as basic a kind of platonism ? Are meanings 'basically' forms ?

I don't dispute our practical skill with the language and the way we glide glide glide.

how do we know what the sign is? Isn't it that which is always-already meaningful? — Moliere

That sounds right, but how do we define 'meaningful' ? That which signifies ? Is the sign "that ill-named thing, the only one, that escapes the instituting question of philosophy...what is it?" ?

To me something like being-in-the-world-together-with-language is an unbreakable unity. If you try to break it, you end up talking nonsense.

Writing is a chasing after — Moliere

Yes! I agree. Philosophy is that chase. The chase for clarity ? Power ? Beauty ? Novelty ?

We leap from stone to stone, from sign to sign, trying to say it.

Trying to say what saying is ?

Writing can be taken as primary to speech, where speech is phono-centric writing. — Moliere

Right. And if metaphors are central and mostly visual, then our talk aimed at the ear is nevertheless hieroglyphic and aimed at the inner or spiritual eye. Now I'm an atheist, so this spiritual eye is an organ for geist or culture or symbol interpretation. Given that the etymological fallacy is indeed a fallacy, what is the strange process of metaphors being 'lifted up' or transfigured so that they bear metaphysical import thereafter ? How does breath become spirit ? How does dirt become primordiality or the apriori ? How does image become trans-ocular form ?

Is taking meaning as basic a kind of platonism ? Are meanings 'basically' forms ? — green flag

Heh. That's the question! I don't believe in forms, and yet I believe words mean. It sounds like platonism of some kind, but I don't think that's really believable either.

Heh. That's the question! I don't believe in forms, and yet I believe words mean. It sounds like platonism of some kind, but I don't think that's really believable either. — Moliere

I believe language means also, I just don't know exactly what it means to say so. So I'm a semantic finitist rather than a semantic nihilist, right ?

Here's Lakoff:
It is a system of metaphor that structures our everyday conceptual system, including most abstract concepts, and that lies behind much of everyday language. The discovery of this enormous metaphor system has destroyed the traditional literal-figurative distinction, since the term literal, as used in defining the traditional distinction, carries with it all those false assumptions.
***

As Derrida noted, metaphor is itself a metaphor. What the hell does it mean to call something a metaphor ? If metaphysics is metaphorical, then metaphor is playing a metaphysical role in the structure as center or basis. I call this the blurry go round. It's a merry hurrying through the fog.

I believe language means also, I just don't know exactly what it means to say so. — green flag

Yup! :D

So I'm a semantic finitist rather than a semantic nihilist, right ?

Sounds good to me :).

For myself, I don't feel coherent enough to have a classification yet. It's just one of those questions which lingers in the back of my mind, one which I don't even know how to formulate clearly, even though here we are talking about meaning.

It is a system of metaphor that structures our everyday conceptual system, including most abstract concepts, and that lies behind much of everyday language. — green flag

Not sure what "It" means here.

As Derrida noted, metaphor is itself a metaphor. What the hell does it mean to call something a metaphor ? If metaphysics is metaphorical, then metaphor is playing a metaphysical role in the structure as center or basis. I call this the blurry go round. It's a merry hurrying through the fog. — green flag

I prefer to attempt to put the question of meaning aside from metaphysics, first. I think it makes much more sense to say we don't know metaphysics as we know science (points in favor of the structuralists -- comparison helps clarify meaning). But regardless of all that, surely we must be able to use language?

I think I'm persuaded by the pragmatics of language. Meaning and use are not the same. But I think the method of looking at use clarifies meaning. Something I think about is that even though language on the whole has a possibly infinite number of meanings, any one token of meaning can't have any more than some finite number of meanings. "token" as in token/type.

the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all — green flag

I don't think he's referring to an aesthetic experience ('what a beautiful sunset!') or a passing thought ('I might go and get icecream'.) I think he's referring to the activities of formal reason. And indeed, there must be commonality there, mustn't there? If I say 'greater than', and you hear 'less than', then communication would be impossible, wouldn't it? There is an entire domain of conventional meanings, one would hope.

one is tempted to imagine that which gives the sentence life as something in an occult sphere — Wittgenstein

A lot of modern philosophy is deflationary with respect to the claims of traditional philosophy. Wittgenstein, I understand, was anti-metaphysical in his approach, and it is just this matter - the reality, or otherwise, of abstract objects - which is fundamental to metaphysics. A great deal of what has gone on in 20th c philosophy has been concerned with overthrowing such tropes.

There's a recent Platonist philosopher I've noticed, Jerrold Katz, one of whose books is called The Metaphysics of Meaning. 'According to Katz, meaning is not simply a matter of convention or social agreement, but is rather grounded in the structure of reality itself. He contends that the meaning of a linguistic expression is not determined solely by its social context or by the intentions of the speaker (contra the 'natural language' philosophers) but rather by real facts about the world to which it refers.

Katz distinguishes between referential and expressive meaning. Referential meaning is the aspect of meaning that is determined by the relationship between language and the world, while expressive meaning is the aspect of meaning that is determined by the speaker's intentions and emotions.

He proposes a theory of semantic composition, which explains how the meaning of complex expressions can be derived from the meanings of their constituent parts. According to Katz, the meaning of a complex expression is not simply the sum of the meanings of its parts, but rather depends on the syntactic structure of the expression and the rules of semantic combination.' (Review here.)

It seems to me that the issue regarding how words refer and mean is troubled by a necessarily doomed search for a causal or mechanical explanation, for an actual empirically discoverable causal link between the sound or the visual symbol and the object it signifies.

My own view is that words refer to things, or mean something just because we take them to. We simply associate the sounds or the visual symbols with what we have learned to associate them, and there doesn't seem to be any great puzzle in that. The real puzzle is the consciousness that allows us to make those associations, and that there can be a shared world for us.

The Katz books look interesting.

It seems to me that the issue regarding how words refer and mean is troubled by a necessarily doomed search for a causal or mechanical explanation, for an actual empirically discoverable causal link between the sound or the visual symbol and the object it signifies. — Janus

Yes, that seems to be the hub of it to me - what correspondence is there between the world and language? It's a pretty tentative connection and interpretive and context dependent, but there's certainly an illusion of signifier and signified mating to produce meaning, even if the post-structuralists have demonstrated the limitations of this relationship.

There is an entire domain of conventional meanings, one would hope. — Wayfarer

Yes, there is something going on. But maybe Aristotle got it backwards. It's the 'external' synchronization that leads to the 'logical illusion' of 'internal' forms.' The language and its 'equivalence classes' (forms, concepts) are more feasibly cogenerated by our constant practical interaction which includes, among other more energy-intensive modifications of our shared world, the imposing of marks and noises called signs or words. We are so profoundly social and linguistic that the 'ghost' in the each of our machines is mostly the same ghost, which is how we mostly cooperate and understand one another.

A great deal of what has gone on in 20th c philosophy has been concerned with overthrowing such tropes. — Wayfarer

Yes, and 'tropes' is a good word. They were just taking seriously the directive to know thyself. The 'rational animal' is the symbolical linguistic animal, the metaphysical metaphorical animal. What is the nature of meaning ? How are meaning and being entangled ? Can we still believe in a static notion of meaning, in the midst of our towers and rockets and chatbots ?

According to Katz, meaning is not simply a matter of convention or social agreement, but is rather grounded in the structure of reality itself. He contends that the meaning of a linguistic expression is not determined solely by its social context or by the intentions of the speaker (contra the 'natural language' philosophers) but rather by real facts about the world to which it refers. — Wayfarer

I'd go so far to say that it is the structure of reality in some sense. And I'd say that of course it's determined by real facts of the world -- and that social context and intentions are themselves such facts.

The idea that there is some meaningless stuff beneath appearances is, as I see, a confusion suggested by 'mental experiences,' as if humans are looking at the screen and not the world. It's the fear of error here which is the cause of that error. The metaphor of the control room in the skull is the most successful conspiracy theory in history. It's The Cave writ small. Atoms and intentions and toothaches exist on the same plane, or they could not signify (objects are obviously not just clumps of sensation but exist in a space of reasons -- but we need not take reasons as immaterial in any simple sense.)

Referential meaning is the aspect of meaning that is determined by the relationship between language and the world, while expressive meaning is the aspect of meaning that is determined by the speaker's intentions and emotions. — Wayfarer

This implicitly casts intentions and emotions as otherworldly or outerwordly, evading our embodiment. Language is marks and noises in the world, not a layer smeared on top of it. (Please add an 'in my view' in front of all my claims. It'll save us both time.)

is troubled by a necessarily doomed search for a causal or mechanical explanation... — Janus

What exactly do you mean by 'causal' or 'mechanical' though ?

The problem of meaning haunts everything, which is not to say that it itself is not haunted in return. But that gets us back to the structuralism half of my point.

But regardless of all that, surely we must be able to use language? — Moliere

Sure. We are practically successful. There are billions of us. I imagine philosophy as wanting a tighter and tighter grip and yet a larger and more articulated view of the world. To solidify and sharpen what we mean manifests something like a will to power and beauty. Why does a cat groom itself ?

Something I think about is that even though language on the whole has a possibly infinite number of meanings, any one token of meaning can't have any more than some finite number of meanings. "token" as in token/type. — Moliere

You can think of an infinite number of tokens in a certain sense by adding context to each traditionally conceived token. You might never use 'token' twice in the same context. We can also imagine sentences as tokens for a countable infinity. And so on. But you make a good point about the reuse of words. There's a paper out there about the use and efficiency of ambiguity. Our short words tend to be ambiguous. We've learned to lean on the practical context to cheapen the cost of babble.

Yes, that seems to be the hub of it to me - what correspondence is there between the world and language? It's a pretty tentative connection and interpretive and context dependent, but there's certainly an illusion of signifier and signified mating to produce meaning, even if the post-structuralists have demonstrated the limitations of this relationship. — Tom Storm

For me what you say invokes another layer, another wrinkle in the fabric.When we ask for correspondence between language and world, are we asking for stable, but hidden, lines of connection, like unseen electrical cables, between words and the world "as it really is"?

I see no problem with correspondence between language and the phenomenal world, since I see the latter as a paradigmatically familiar, collectively linguistically generated illusion that we all find it impossible not to be inducted into. I hear someone say "it is raining" and I know exactly what to look for, simply because of the association of these words with an everyday experience almost everyone would be familiar with.

It is correspondence between language and the noumenal world which is inscrutable, even impossible. And I think it is that impossible correspondence which is really being asked for. It is impossible because language can correspond only to what we commonly experience, simply by association, on account of the fact that we take it to correspond, but nothing beyond that.

So, the idea that language could correspond to the noumenal world is neither correct nor incorrect, but is a "not even wrong" category error; we don't even know what it could mean for them to correspond to the noumenal world.

So, the idea that language could correspond to the noumenal world is neither correct nor incorrect, but is a "not even wrong" category error. — Janus

No real disagreement but how does this reflect on our capacity to talk meaningfully about ontology and metaphysics? Nevertheless it often does seem a metaphysical puzzle that we are able to understand each other at all. No wonder some religious folk consider God foundationally necessary for intelligibility.

It is correspondence between language and the noumenal world which is inscrutable, even impossible — Janus

Are you coming at this as a Kantian?

What exactly do you mean by 'causal' or 'mechanical' though ?

The problem of meaning haunts everything, which is not to say that it itself is not haunted in return. But that gets us back to the structuralism half of my point. — green flag

We all knows what 'causal' means in the ordinary sense. Same with 'mechanical'. The meaning of both just consists in one thing acting on another to bring about effect, change, event or process.

If we think that if we don't know what words mean or refer to, then we cannot understand ourselves to be asking the questions about meaning or reference in the first place.