ONT Re: Extension x Comprehension = Information
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JA = Jon Awbrey
JD = Jean-Luc Delatre
JA: I am now having to skip around through the file
of JD's comments and meta-comments, and that is
far too risky a strategy for a linear mentality
like me, so I should discontinue to discontinue
in a moment and continue from where I broke off, ...
JD: So I am afraid you cannot keep up with my comments
if I continue making them on the fly, but I need
to make some points too.
JA: but I find this piece at the end of his remarks
that I can address within the immediate context,
and since it constitutes only around the second
time in recorded history that one of my readers
has tried one of the "exercises for the reader",
how can I possibly think to overlook it?
| It is important to distinguish between the two
| functions of a word: 1st to denote something --
| to stand for something, and 2nd to mean something --
| or as Mr. Mill phrases it -- to 'connote' something.
|
| What it denotes is called its 'Sphere'.
| What it connotes is called its 'Content'.
|
| Thus the 'sphere' of the word 'man' is for me every man
| I know; and for each of you it is every man you know.
|
| The 'content' of 'man' is all that we know of all men, as
| being two-legged, having souls, having language, &c., &c.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 459.
JA: The question is: What sort of thing is a connotation?
Is it a sign? That is to say, is it yet another term?
Or is it something like an abstract attribute, namely,
a character, an intension, a property, or a quality?
And while we're asking, does it really even matter?
JD: NO.
JA: "No" is one answer worth considering.
But then: Why does it not matter?
What reason might be given that
would excuse the indifference?
JD: You have to stop somewhere where you feel this is appropriate
for your current purpose and you *don't* need to justify this.
Otherwise you *cannot* stop because the justification is also
a continuation!!!
JD: See Wittgenstein about that.
Alas, poor Lutwidge. I dug him, Horatio --
JD: Before trying to answer a question do you ever ask yourself
for which ultimate purpose you want to get an answer?
JA: I've been known to. But that usually gets me into a lot of trouble.
JD: Of course, same point as above. You need *both* to ask questions about
your goals *and* to stop asking questions when you feel it's OK.
Just dare to do it.
Do, dare, data sum.
JA: Hmmm. Now that I think of it,
I think I'll leave that as an
exercise for the reader, till
tomorrow, then ...
JD: My understanding of 'Sphere'
is the set of all things which
the word can possibly name.
JA: Already, then, your putative understanding
of "sphere" is very different than Peirce's.
| Thus the 'sphere' of the word 'man' is for me every man
| I know; and for each of you it is every man you know.
JA: Peirce's concept is parameterized in relation to an interpreter,
and thus in relation to a "moment of interpretation" (MOI), but
your concept is stated in absolute, "perfect information" terms.
JD: OOPS ... Sorry, *my* mistake!
It's so obvious to me that any ontology has existence for
a given observer and a given time that I failed to qualify
my statement "all things which the word can possibly name"
with proper restrictions. I am actually quite in agreement
with Peirce with perhaps a slight difference in that the
fact one's current knowledge does not cover all what is
possibly known by others or in the future must be taken
into consideration when dealing with the current ontology.
That is, you should never forget that your knowledge is
incomplete when making decisive statements based on the
current ontology.
Peirce has a word for it: "Fallibilism".
JD: My understanding of 'Content' is the set of attributes,
properties, predicates (whatever you name this, I hope
you understand what I mean) that applies to *all* of
those things in the 'Sphere'.
JA: Again, your understanding is vastly more encompassing than Peirce's ...
JD: Same as above.
JD: But these are *not* the meanings of "denotation" or "connotation",
I *really* don't need to talk about these provided I can talk about
what is denoted and connoted. That is another level of discourse.
JA: Yes, but it is the level of discourse in which we swim,
the one of which we have some immediate grasp, the one
that is "closer to us", as Aristotle said, and the one
in which we cannot help but to begin. So let us begin.
JD: Don't forget to stop at some point too ...
There's a time and a place for stopping,
a snowy woods, metaphorical or not,
but not just yet ...
| A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
| For and a shrouding-sheet;
| O, a pit of clay for to be made
| For such a guest is meet.
|
| 'Hamlet', 1st Clown, 5.1.91-94.
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