From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 10:58:30 BST
Hi Bo,
> he must necessarily have some other definition of intellect in mind.
> OK I shan't taunt David he has made a great job saving the social
> reality from the "social repetitive mob" (;-) but turn to the thinking term
> (which is a variety of "manipulation of symbols") instead. Sam Norton
> (where art thou Sam?)
I'm still here!! Still reading and listening, but having just started a new and much more complex
job (now in charge of four parishes, not just an assistant in one) my workload is overflowing, so
I'm keeping shtum for a bit.
> had dug out a Wittgenstein quote on that
> issue. I am unable to find it (June sometime) but I remember that
> David agreed with it.
> If my memory serves me Wittgenstein maintains that thinking is
> language internalized,
Briefly, I would disagree with that. The tenor of Wittgenstein's thought was against 'internal'
meanings, at least as the primary foundation for language (which is why I see language as operating
at the social level). His 'private language' argument, for example, famously demolishes the idea
that the sense or meaning of a language is restricted to individual perception - on the contrary, it
is public. So thinking is foundationally a public activity, rooted in a shared public life (the
'language game'). Hence: "If a lion could talk, we could not understand him" - because we do not
have a shared society with the lion, whereas we do with our fellow human beings, more or less.
I'm mulling on a couple of longer posts/ essays at the moment - one about the evolution of the
intellect (thanks to Squonk for the pointer to Up from dragons, which I've ordered), and one about
the nature of SOM - about which I am harbouring heretical thoughts :-)
Love to all
Sam
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Aug 07 2003 - 10:58:21 BST