Search This Blog

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

More meaning

The standard forms, the rules, seem to be essential to meaning, but this is misleading. It is only in evaluation that real meaning arises, not in 'analysis' (or at least not in any formal analysis).

If I repeat what you have said to me, however exactly, I am not doing what you were doing when you said it.  I will have repeated form, not meaning. (Not use, intention, context, occasion, etc. ... an incompletable list).

I write this now only once, although I may reuse the words - even in this order - on other occasions.  You may believe that you have understood them as a consequence of certain conventions, but when you try to articualte these you will find them melting away under your analysis: the concept of a convention cannot be elaborated by appealing to conventions, especially when it is our ability to recognise these that is being investigated.

We should not try to say new things, but only be aware that evey saying is new, and look to its novelty for its meaning.

You might accuse me, saying that I take it as some original, some article of faith, that we can speak. But your accusation is only an accusation on exactly those grounds.  I do not 'believe' that we can speak, I just speak. It is in my speaking with you that the meaning of  'believe' arises.

No comments: