Hmm... Nobody seems to want to flame me for my musical gaffe, so maybe I actually was successful at cancelling that article at sites other than here. Now let's see if I remember what Wittgenstein said any better than I remember what Leonard Bernstein said.
In article <1992Feb21.131123.15890@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu>:
kbradfor@vdoe386.vak12ed.edu (Kenneth Bradford) writes:
> I'm no expert on left/right brain-ness, but in relation to the
> second part of your message, you might want to look at both
> some stuff like L. Wittgenstein's philosophy of meaning (If you
> can't see it, the word for it doesn't really exist....) ...
It's been a long, long time since I read Wittgenstein, and even then I never read that much. One thing I did read, though, which for some reason has stayed with me ever since, was his discussion of the word "game." What I got out of this -- rightly or wrongly -- was that words can be defined neither extensionally (extensively?) or descriptively (intensively?). In other words, meaning is a very amorphous and fuzzy thing.
In other words, any attempt at a precise descriptive definition of a "game" will either exclude some things which are clearly considered games, or include some things which are clearly not. Not all games are competitive, not all games are played for fun and a lot of things done for fun are not games. Maybe all games have rules, but many things that have rules are not games.
On the other hand, simply enumerating/pointing at those things which are games won't do either, because, for instance, when Nintendo came along how did we immediately know that it was a game, whereas we (at least I) are sure that some other activities, such as posting articles to usenet, are not games?
It seems to me that if one wants to understand meaning one should start with the way children learn meaning. When I think of meaning from this point of view, it becomes extremely obvious to me that our minds do not contain [metaphorical] dictionaries that tell us the meanings of words by providing linguistic equivalents.
On the other hand, meanings are not purely extensional either. A young child learns the word "dog" in reference to some specific dog, but this word becomes not just a proper noun but a generalized concept, so that other dogs will also be identified by this word, as will, in all probability, cats and cows and horses. In fact, at first the child resists the attempt to teach distinctions. The parent says "Horse" and the child insists on "Dog," until finally they compromise on "Big dog."
More interesting is how children learn what the linguists call nominalizations -- abstract concepts. I don't remember this process in my own daughter's growth, but it must occur fairly late. Almost certainly the verbs are learned first and the nominalized forms come much later. (Although in the beginning, the distinction between nouns and verbs is not all that clear.) A father hugs his daughter and says "I love you." So that the meaning of "love" starts out not as a descriptive definition or a list, but as a feeling. A very good feeling, so that "love" becomes something the person attaches a very high value to. And as one grows up, the "complex equivalence" attached to the word will be adjusted in various ways, to make sure that this very good word is attached to things that the person approves of and becomes detached from things (such as, maybe, possessiveness) the person disapproves of. ("But that's not love -- that's selfishness.")
For those participating in sci.psychology, another very highly valued word is "science." Almost every summer we have an extended discussion/argument about "What is science?" It becomes very important to determine the complex equivalence for "science" in such a way as to include the things one approves of (such as certain parts of academic psychology) and exclude things one does not approve of (such as pop psychology). The attitude is Platonist, as if instead of coming to an agreement on the meaning we will attach to the particular label "science," we are conducting an investigation to find the true meaning of this concept as it exists in some Platonic universe somewhere. The stakes are high, for if one is able to attach the label "scientific" to one's assertions and investigations then they are automatically categorized as being of high value. Whereas the label "unscientific" suggests very strongly that the assertions in question have little value and are not useful descriptions of the world.
Marvin Minsky's rebuke here to the critics of Freud comes to mind. Minsky argues for a complex equivalence for the word "science" which is different from the one that many posters to sci.psychology assert (and which, incidentally, is much closer to my own). (But then I'm only a mathematician.)
In human potential/human growth/new age seminars one finds similar values placed on the words "growth," "transformation," and "spirituality." These words are seldom defined, but the mere use of them seems to automatically validate whatever the speaker is saying.
The word "spiritual" is especially interesting to me, because like the word "God" no one who uses it seems to be able to define it at all, except to say that it's "not logical and not emotional." And yet, although they can't define the word, clearly at some time they learned it, because I don't think the meaning of "spiritual" comes under the category of a priori knowledge.
I say to religious people "How can you discuss the existence of God without first defining what it is you're talking about?" And they answer "To define God is a very profound question. Thinkers have spent centuries trying to find a definition." And yet these people weren't born with the concept of God built in. They learned it somewhere.