🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <peeters.721793198@tasman> peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters) writes:

...

>People who propose theories have reasons to do so - at least one would
>expect that to be the case. 

To be sure. The question remains: are these good reasons?

>One of the reasons why there should be
>theories of meaning is that people who talk about meaning (don't we all?)
>want to make sure they get their point across. They want to make sure that
>others know how they use the word. That requires a theory.

You seem to be saying that in order to understand what is said whenever the
word "meaning" comes up, one must have a "theory of meaning". I'm not clear
about this. Is "meaning" a very special word, or are theories required to
understand every word? Do I, for example, have to have a theory of
elephants before I can understand talk in which "elephant" comes up?

Moreover, if understanding talk about "meaning" requires the adoption of
some theory of meaning, then it would follow that philosophers can seldom
understand each other when they talk about this subject, since there have
been many and various theories of meaning. Thus, philosophers who hold
different theories must be talking about different things when they discuss
"meaning"; they only think they are talking to each other about the same
thing. 

I had thought that theories of meaning are not constructed so much to help
philosophers understand each other's talk about "meaning", but because
philosophers have a deep conviction that, one the one hand, there is
"meaning" and one the other, there is "language". The theory explicates the
precise relation of the two; its function is not to define words, or to lay
a foundation for discourse about meaning.

>I did NOT insist that there are reasons to formulate theories of meaning - I
>took that for granted. ...

I thought it might be interesting to ask you _why_ you take this for
granted. Is there some innate joy in formulating theories? Are they perhaps
aesthetic objects that we admire for their beauty? Or does this theory have
some _use_? If the answer is, "well, if you have to ask, then you can't
understand", then I will, of course, have to desist from my questioning.
Formulating theories of meaning is, perhaps, a natural urge that some
people have and that can't be explained further. Those who don't get the
urge can't expect to participate. 

-- 
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             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |cash@convex.com
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