Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
Why can't the social situation provide the context? If every time something happens it is accompanied by the same words then the word will be associated with the event. For example if they hear 'walk' before every occasion they go out, they will associate the word and the activity. But they need not know exactly what 'walk' means. As we know, a dog can make such associations, but I do not think a dog can distinguish 'walk' from 'run', 'go out, 'get some exercise', 'go shopping'. Nor do I think the dog associates 'walk' with any specific perception.
I don't contradict the possibility of the social situation providing the context. When the context cannot be gained via spoken (or written) language, it has to come from a sensual experience of the situation. This includes any social situation. But i'm primarily interested in the first instances where a child learns it's first words (even before it can speak them), a moment in it's life where I have to assume it doesn't even understand the social situation. It might be that a child already understands some social situations when it learns to understand it's first words, but it might also not be. Perhaps research on child psychology can answer that, but my current focus lies elsewhere so this will have to wait.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
The correctness consists simply of using that word in the same way as everybody else, so that we are understood in the way we want to be, There is no 'correct definition' for a word like 'hot', only the way it is used, which is what a dictionary records.
That's how most people understand and use words, but if you have a community that uses words that are defined in an exact manner, like in mathematics or other sciences, you may still use those words in a manner that contradicts that definition, but the community will not accept it and may criticize, ignore or even expel you. You are always free to misappropriate words, but don't expect to be accepted for it.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
I think the only way we 'experience' words is when we use them to talk to one another.
Might be that we use the word experience differently, I understand experiencing a word as it being used, not obligatorily by myself. So a child hearing it's parents use a word would, in my sense, experience that word too.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
A person blind from birth can learn the circumstances when we use the
word 'blue'. If you asked them; '
What is the colour of the sky?' they would answer '
Blue'. That they are not getting any visual sensation makes no difference; I am not blind and I can talk of 'chair' or 'dragon' or 'electron' without needing to be looking at any of those things or even having any distinct mental image of them. A word is not a sensation.
True, but for every non-blind person it is tied to a sensation and contrary to the blind man, you can teach that person the meaning of blue just by pointing to blue items and saying “this is blue”. The point is that the blind man can only know and understand how the word blue is used after he learned language, because the only way to explain it to him is via language. A non-blind person can learn it as soon it has understood the meaning behind pointing a finger. Thus in the case of the blind man, he needs to have understood some kind of core of language before he can be told about the color blue, in the other case that core is not needed and the sensation and it's corresponding word may be necessary to be included in the core (I don't think colors are part of the core, but things like difference, direction and position probably are, and you will have a hard time to explain these to someone who has never experienced them). I think you need some concepts intrinsically understood in anyone or anything that does the understanding, or you have nothing to build upon. I cannot exclude that these concepts are entirely “build in” for humans, but I think it likely that sensations also come into equation.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
Indeed, that is what I am saying; the words are not labels for our personal perceptions. (I'm not sure about the final sentence).
They kind of are because every time we perceive the same sensation we give them the same label. But at the same time they are not meaning that they cannot be compared to the personal sensations of another person.
Without wanting to open another huge thread of discussion, with objective versus subjective truth, the way to differentiate between the two is to see if two people always agree on an observation or not. A group of people agreeing that the color of a box is different as the color of another one will be able to agree that the difference is an objective fact. If instead they are asked if the first box is as beautiful as the second and they give different answers then we can say that the beauty is a subjective fact.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
I agree if we just said a word to ourselves it would not be an act - but then it would not be a word either. If I am just talking to myself, then any sound (or no sound at all) would do. But words are used to
communicate, which is an act.
As Belinda has suggested, it would be a lot easier if you read some stuff on this. If you are interested in this subject, surely it makes sense to look at what philosophers have written?
The dictionary describes what an act is by using synonyms but I would define an act as the following: Any act is a change caused by an intelligent agent in order to achieve a set goal. That act has to be conscious. This is the closest I get right now to a definition of the meaning that is attributed to the word “act” as a verb. To think is an act, to talk to yourself consciously, even when not perceived by someone else, is an act, because both are conscious choices that change reality, be it a change in one's mind or the creation of waves in the surrounding air. But the own heartbeat is not the result of an act. We do that unconsciously, even if it is we who do it. This is, I think, the essence in the difference between doing and acting.
You say yourself that words are used to communicate. That means they are a tool for communication and are not the act itself. The keyboard is a tool you use in typing. The one is an object, the other a verb for an action.
I already informed myself a bit about Wittgenstein, but I have to see anything I didn't know yet. What he seems to say is that words get their meaning by being used by people. But this doesn't contradict the possibility of them getting their meaning by definition. I don't mean the same words, I mean that some get their meaning by usage and some by definition. All this in the context of a social agreement which is needed for any norm. Otherwise everybody would use words like he pleases and the main utility of language would go out the window. Being a mathematician, I doubt Wittgenstein would disagree, as many, if not all words in the mathematics are defined.
I have the impression that the main points of contention in our discussion are the following ones that I formulate here in the manner I currently see it.
1: Words get their meaning trough the usage by people. I agree as long as some and not all words are meant here, as explained above (If you include the creation of a definition as a usage by people I would have to agree that all words are created like that, but I differ between the creation of meaning through the day to day usage by many people and the definition of the meaning by one person, else the meaning of the first sentence becomes trivial).
2: Words can and often have a precise meaning.
3: Words can have multiple meanings that depend of the context, but that doesn't exclude the possibility of them having an exact meaning in some of these contexts.
The following is less about language and more about the meaning of words that i'll call concepts.
4: There is a core language of concepts that is the minimum amount of concepts necessary in order to be able to define other concepts through concepts alone.
4.1: There are multiple possible ways on how core concepts may come to be.
- Core concepts are intrinsic to the intelligent agent, have to be “build in” and have to be associated to the corresponding terms via social observation and interaction.
- Core concepts are learned by observation, either of physical events or social situations, and then associated to the corresponding terms by via social observation and interaction.
- A core in language may not exist.
4.2: There are multiple possible ways on how core concepts/terms may possibly be differentiated to non-core concepts/terms.
- Given a language, the core concepts are the remaining ones after repeatedly removing any term that is not used in the definition/description of any other term.
- The core concepts are the remaining ones after removing every concept where a more abstract one exists that encompasses it.
I' m probably forgetting some things.
What I read about Wittgenstein didn't contradict the points 2 and 3.
Londoner wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2017 11:55 am
And what would a clear definition look like? We are back with the problem that if the definition consisted of words, that list of properties, then we would also need clear definitions of all the words used in that list, and the words in those definitions would need definitions, ad infinitum.
Earlier you implied the meaning of a word was related not to words but to a 'perception'. That is the jump we would have to make, from the word to something that is not a word. For example, we might say the only word with a clear meaning was '
That!', accompanied by the act of pointing to an object. (This is discussed in Russell).
I absolutely agree that the idea that words are somehow attached to objects, or are labels for internal feelings, seems the common sense one, but we have been unable to come up with a coherent account of how they do this. As all my name dropping might suggest, it isn't for a want of trying!
A clear/precise definition would only use precisely defined words and sentences compositions. I experienced a lot of such definitions while studying math and therefore never questioned their existence. But these definitions always relied on terms which meaning are non-controversial, very fundamental and not defined themselves, thus my interest in that possible core.
I started the thread with the example of dictionary definitions needing other words etc… These definitions that need definitions are one of the interesting questions. Now, I see two possibilities: Either the definitions of these words rely on other words which definitions indirectly rely on the first word, what I called circular definitions, or for each definition of a word you need new words that in turn need new words ad infinitum. I strongly doubt the second case.
In the first case I have no problem, I can accept a core that relies on itself in order to define itself, as long as it is consistent.
When it comes to meaning, perception and words it gets complicated and i'm still trying to figure it out. But why would “that” be clearer than other words? It is exact in the sense that this is an exact way to reference an object in the real world without any confusion. But I would rather call that “distinct”, meaning the object being clearly distinguished from others. Exact has a different meaning. But i'm not sure if that is what you mean.
And thinking about a core of language is one way to try to explain how language works, isn't it
Ok, now i have to read the rest of the thread, this is becoming quite a job!