What is the meaning of ‘meaning’?
A strange question in one sense but as fundamental a question as one needs to pursue in another sense.
I would say that meaning is an emotion that I recognize when the emotion engendered by an inducer are reflected back to me in the form of feelings.
Meaning is when something gives you information about it, that you are aware of it having an effect on your life. The more cultured you are the more meanings something will have for you. A mechanic will see meaning in an engine by seeing it as his duty, as his passion, as his problem, as the thing that makes him dirty, excetera excetera.
A kid will see a burger as a nice tasting thing, as a cool thing.
Meaning is where there are opinions about that thing. Things may have more than one meaning as I pointed out, and the more aware you are of the thing the more it means to you. What it means to you gives it meaning, that it generates reactions in your mind of course.
Isn't knowledge what we understand?
whom are you quoting here? Winter? you have posted this in a number of places, lots and LOTS of places but nowhere attributed the specific source.We have all grown up to consider thought to be primarily a matter of language and propositions. We have not generally been taught this notion explicitly but have acquired it through social osmosis (picked it up without conscious effort because it is a notion that permeates our culture, i.e. it is a traditional notion). “…there is thought without language; this is possible because thought originates in our sense of spatial and kinesthetic orientation in the world.”
not cognitive scientists and not 'folk theory', but Aristotle, principally in his Ethics, wherein he makes 'classifications', "genos" from which we get the term genus. Linnaeus used Aristotle's classifications ("genera", "species") in his more complete system. But Aristotle did not suggest meaning came from class - if anything, the other way around.Common sense or, as cognitive science labels it, folk theory informs us that “all things are a kind of thing”. All things have in common with other things certain characteristics; i.e. all things belong in categories with other like things. Things are categorized together based upon what they have in common. It might be worth while to think of category as being a container.
In classical or conventional terms we categorize things in accordance with what are regarded as being that which is essential to that kind of thing. All things that are essentially the same fall into the same category. What is essential to a tree is that which is necessary and sufficient for that thing to be classified as a tree. To categorize a thing, i.e. define a thing, is to give its essential characteristics.
Categorization is meaningful.
i would ask again whom you are quoting, but i can fill in the blanks here. This is Lakoff. It is fine sounding, but a little time spent with it leads one to a "HUH?... whaddidheSAY?"Meaning is not a thing; something is meaningful for a creature only when there is an association between that thing and the creature. “Meaningfulness derives from the experience of functioning as a being of a certain sort in an environment of a certain sort.” It is meaningful to a soldier when s/he mistakenly categorizes a tank to be only a harmless bush or an enemy to be a friend.
we don't know what it is but is sure is important. enough.... the rest is a rehash of familiar thinking.There is nothing more meaningful for a creatures’ survival than correct categorization of the world in which that creature lives.
whom are you quoting here? Winter? you have posted this in a number of places, lots and LOTS of places but nowhere attributed the specific source.
even if we have not yet said what "meaningful" means?
geo.
What is the meaning of the meaning of meaning?
What is the meaning of ?meaning??
A strange question in one sense but as fundamental a question as one needs to pursue in another sense.
I would say that meaning is an emotion that I recognize when the emotion engendered by an inducer are reflected back to me in the form of feelings.
In other words, meaning is preceptive, not universal. Things that have meaning for you, aren't necessarily mine or anyone else.
ricksfolly
Yes, meaning is not universal. What does make meaning universal is the fact that this subjective meaning result from the human capacity for structuring meaning, i.e. objectivity is our shared subjectivity.>>
You're referring to those who inhabit the real world, of course, the remaining 99 percent reactionaries, couldn't care less.
Objectivity is our shared subjectivity... good, very good.
<<We have been taught that ?definition? is synonymous with ?meaning? because we have been taught that the mind is disembodied and that intellect has nothing to do with the effects of body. >>
That's the problem. Most of what we've been taught has nothing to do with the real world.
ricksfolly
That's the problem. Most of what we've been taught has nothing to do with the real world.
ricksfolly
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