Re: Clueless question about meaning

From: Ron Hardin (rhhardin_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 12/28/04 

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:16:13 GMT

Jacques Guy wrote:
>
> Arne Dehli Halvorsen wrote:
>
> > "These columns are called Pointing at the Moon (after the Zen ko'an of the
> > Sixth Patriarch HuiNeng, who said that confusing a word with the word's
> > meaning is like confusing a finger pointing at the Moon with the Moon
> > itself)."
>
> Yes, that must be it, definitely. It is brilliant. Saussure's signe,
> signifiant and signifié in just a few words. And it took Korzybski
> a whole book to say the same, dubbing it "General Semantics". Give
> me Hui Neng any time.

The reference to the moon is chosen to make it mysterious, in particular
making it feminine. This in turn is a fine example of use and mention
being indistinguishable.

Substitute a ball of wax and you're in the enlightenment philosopher's
study instead. He will cut out any interest in order to get at the
problem itself.

If meaning is a net of related conventions however, abstracting away
from them simply makes the question empty. Which is its point.

Nietzsche:

``Supposing truth to be a woman - what? is the suspicion not well
founded that all philosophers, when they have been dogmatists,
have had little understanding of women, that gruesome earnestness
the clumsy importunity with which they have been in the habit of
approaching truth have been inept and improper means of winning
a wench? Certainly she has not let herself be won - and today
every kind of dogmatism stands sad and discouraged. If it continues
to stand at all!'' 

-- 
Ron Hardin
rhhardin@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

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