Language and Time

sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/615/2

By Greg Miller
ScienceNOW Daily News
15 June 2006
Every language has metaphors that express time in terms of space. An English speaker, for instance, might look forward to a date next week or look back on last year's office party with embarrassment and regret. But now, researchers report the first known example of a language that puts the past ahead and the future behind.

In Aymara, a tongue spoken by about 2 million indigenous people of the same name in the Andean highlands of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile, the word "nayra" can refer both to objects that are physically in front of the speaker and to events in the past. "Nayra mara,” for example, means "last year,” explains Rafael Núñez, a cognitive scientist at the University of California (UC), San Diego. "Qhipa mara," on the other hand, indicates "next year." "Qhipa" means back or behind and is incorporated into other future-oriented expressions such as "qhipüru" (a future day) and "akata qhiparu" (from now on).

This concept of time extends to gestures as well as words. Speakers point backward or wave over their shoulders when talking about a future event and extend their hands and arms forward to indicate a past event--reaching farther out for events that happened long ago. The past-is-forward concept is most ingrained in older individuals: Younger Aymara with more formal education often use expressions and gestures that put the future in front, especially when talking with outsiders, Núñez says.

Núñez first noticed peculiarities in spoken Aymara when backpacking through the Andes as an undergraduate student in the 1980s. He eventually returned and collected 20 hours of videotaped conversation with 30 Aymara volunteers and presents an analysis of the tapes with UC Berkeley linguist Eve Sweetser in the current issue of Cognitive Science.

The work has fascinating implications for understanding how the Aymara conceptualize time, says David McNeill, a linguist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. "The Aymara seem to equate time with sources of knowledge," he says. For the Aymara, the forward direction is the source of what's known: what's seen by the eyes, what's happened in the past. Behind, where they can't see, lies the future.

A Translation Issue from Anya

First: Was it you that was involved in the discussion of whether one can lie unintentionally?

Secondly: In the development of "doubting things" of an individual (assuming it can be broken down into stages of different 'stuff' that can be doubted (stuff because that seems more general thatn thing/concept/idea/person) what does a developing consciousness doubt before the other: a) the truthfulness (certainty) of themselves to themself or b) the meaning of things (direct symbolism)? (maybe doubt isn't the best word, maybe question, maybe wonder, maybe just perception, or perception altered by doubt....erghhhhh)

Thirdly: I have come to the conclusion that you are my worst enemy or at least to what I want to do in life--that is translate-harness language (s). As if it wasn't enough that there is never a one-to-one correspondent between two words in two languages (slippery synonyms at best) There you reappear with your "meaning" crap. So since I take this as a personal attack on my translating peace of mind, From now on I will send you really itrritating word questions so they can distract you from your theoretical task at hand.

So here is one I have just encountered.

Russian book title: "School for Fools."
problem word: Fools (archaic, devoid of meaning)
In the Russian the word for "fool" is used frequently and casually, still carries all the levels of meaning that can be found for the English word in the dictionary (e.g. a dupe, a jester. particularly: mentally deficient, retarted) So the title is literally "School for Retards" but that can't be the title (Sounds adolescent and too pejorative/joking).
Use: The narrator is a schizophrenic kid who goes to a "specialED" school for all sorts of mentally deficient kids who have learning disabilities/crazy (ironically he is no fool).

(As I was writing this I cam up with a really good solution, but I'm not going to tell you so you can at least waste five minutes of your time thinking about this. Thank you for indirectly aiding already)

4. Hope you are enjoying yourself. Congratulations for finding a good use for your education (As you can see by the time I have to write your this impolitely long message, I haven't. To defend my self worth, this is the only one I have written to date so I haven't sunk into that sort of muck just yet)
Enough.
Thank you, Sincerely, Yours Truly,
~A

P.S.-nya

June 15, 2006

06.15.06

How can anyone claim to have a theory of meaning when the word “meaning” has so many meanings?

For example: “The game tomorrow has no meaning.” - Which means that it has no (practical) purposes. And when I say something like, “Life has no meaning,” then the meaning of the word “meaning” is different, albeit related. Again, it is as if the same piece is making a different move in the game, or a hammer is being used to remove a nail where before we were pounding the nail into the ground.

On occassion, we make the mistake of believing that a sentence states a physical or metaphysial law or truth when in fact we are merely stating a grammatical rule. (We believe that because the hammer was used once to hammer the nail, that therefore that is its only possible function.) This, I think, is a big part of what Austin is trying to say.

For example: “One cannot perceive the same object from two places at the same time.” But what if I am in a room with a table and a mirror? In what situations - in what kind of language-game - do these kinds of sentences make sense? (Have meaning?) And how am I to know the criteria to use in order to establish this?

Something about this discussion makes me feel like I am stretching the rules of grammar to fit my needs. They are elastic.

June 13 - 14, 2006

06.13.06

P.I., §329-330: “When I think in language, there aren’t ‘meanings’ going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought... Is thinking a kind of speaking? One would like to say it is what distinguishes speech with thought from talking without thinking. - And so it seems to be an accompaniment of speech. A process, which may accompany something else, or can go on by itself.
Say: “Yes, this pen is blunt. Oh well, it’ll do.” First, thinking it; then without thought; then just think the thought without the words. - Well, while doing some writing I might test the point of my pen, make a face - and then go on with a gesture of resignation. - I might also act in such a way while taking various measurements that an onlooker would say I had - without words - thought: If two magnitudes are equal to a third, they are equal to one another. - But what constitutes thought here is not some process which has to accompany the words if they are not to be spoken without thought.”

I am becoming more and more conviced that Heidegger and Wittgenstein were philosophically kindred spirits. They both saw the history of philosophy as something that is fundamentally flawed, although for different reasons. For Heidegger, the tragedy was that philosophers had lost or forgotten the language of the Ancient Greeks; for Wittgenstein, the problem was that they were still using that language. For Heidegger, all of the questions of philosophy could and should be boiled down to the fundamental question of Being, or of the Meaning of Being. For Wittgenstein, all of the problems of philosophy were mistakes (were the wrong questions to be asking) caused by the bewitchment of language.

In “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” Derrida writes, “Successively, and in a regulated fashion, the center receives different forms or names. The history of metaphysics, like the history of the West, is the history of these metaphors and metonymies.” (279) Let’s keep this in mind when we follow Wittgenstein in the above passage, as he deconstructs the word-concept “thinking.”

We ask ourselves, “What is thinking?” or “Is thinking a kind of speaking?” What Wittgenstein (under the influence of Moore) wants to remind us that when we ask such a question, we are allowing the structure of language to trick us (in a sense too rough) into believing that we are asking a question that is meaningful. Asking “What is thinking?” is alike to asking “What is a dog?” only in grammatical structure. What Derrida says is that when we ask such a philosophical question, we are taking part in the historical language-game that is Western Philosophy.

Derrida: “It would be easy enough to show that the concept of structure and even the word “structure” itself are as old as episteme - that is to say, as old as Western science and Western philosophy - and that their roots thrust deep into the soil of ordinary language, into whose deepest recesses the episteme plunges in order to gather them up and to make them part of itself in a metaphorical displacement.” (278)

“Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath not skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word “honour”? What is that “honour”? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it.” - Falstaff, 1 Henry IV, 5.1.130-38

- “I meant nothing by it.”
- “Don’t worry - he didn’t mean that.”
Does this imply when we speak kiddingly or when we are intended to not be ‘taken seriously’, are sentences are meaningless? No, of course not. But there are reasons why we use the same word in these different situations. The same piece, as it were, is making different moves in the game.

06.14.06

Traditionally, it is God who reveals signs to us, i.e., makes revelations. And, traditionally, it is up to us to interpret those signs, as Sartre points out.

But when I perceive, it is only on rare and special occassions when I also interpret.

Derrida speaks of Western Philosophy as a history of metaphors and metonymies. In section 32 of Being and Time, a section which I interpret as being one of the most pragmatic parts of Heidegger’s philosophy, Heidegger still makes the claim that “that which is designated is understood as that as which we are to take the thing in question. That which is disclosed in understanding - that which is understood - is already accessible in such a way that its ‘as which’ can be made to stand out explicitly. The ‘as’ makes up the structure of the explicitness of something that is understood. It constitutes the interpretation.” H149. In the following sentence, Heidegger says that “we ‘see’ it as a table, a door, a carriage, or a bridge...”

This pragmatic theory is never fully dropped by Heidegger even when he makes what I would describe as a ‘mystical’ turn in his later writings. He is set on the view that the acts of understanding, interpreting, and articulating on the part of Being take place in terms of a ‘totality of involvements.’ He says, “In interpreting, we do not, so to speak, throw a ‘signification’ over some naked thing which is present-at-hand, we do not stick a value on it; but when something within-the-world is encountered as such, the thing in question already has an involvement which is disclosed in our understanding of the world, and this involvement is one which gets laid out by the interpretation.” (H150, and hence the necessity for Heidegger’s concept of fore-conception.)

Heidegger seems to be revealing here the influence of Nietzsche upon him - that is, that when I name an object, I am not throwing some arbitrary significaion at it, in a very, very crude reading of logical positivism, but I am also betraying something about my own social, psychological, and physiological make-up. That is, when I say, “That’s a table” I am interpreting that (the only ‘true name’, in Russell’s sense) as a ‘table’ - I am giving a kind of consent to a social norm, I am agreeing to a custom, I am invoking a totality of involvements of which I am a part. This is a part of what it is to be Being-in-the-world.

Revenge of the Duck-Rabbit: But again, recalling Derrida, we would have to say that Heidegger, like Nietzsche before him, realizes that something like ‘interpretation’ or ‘perception’ is far more complicated than philosophers have traditionally believed, but that they are also still participating within the boundaries of the history of that philosophical language. And that means that they are still being bound by limits of certain philosophical concepts. [object=X]

Ask yourself: “When I am looking at a table, in what sense am I interpreting it as a table?”

P.I., §215-216: “But isn’t the same at least the same? We seem to have an infallible paradigm of identity in the identity of a thing with itself. I feel like saying: “Here at any rate there can’t be a variety of interpretations. If you are seeing a thing you are seeing identity too.” Then are two thing the same when they are what one thing is? And how am I to apply what the one thing shews me to the case of two things?... “A thing is identical with itself.” - There is no finer example of a useless proposition, which yet is connected with a certain play of the imagination. It is as if in imagination we put a thing into its own shape and saw that it fitted.” (Why Heidegger felt the necessity to have the concept of fore-conception.)

It seems to be a misapplication of the concept of interpretation to claim that the “development of the understanding we call “interpretation”.” (H148)

What is it to ‘mis-interpret’? To ‘misunderstand’? (To not get the meaning.)

The language that we use to describe our “private experiences” is a necessarily public language.

Metaphorically speaking, this language is subject to the laws of history.

June 8 - 9, 2006

06.08.06

What happens when we begin to regard mathematics as a kind of language? Does one ‘read’ numbers in any way similar to how one ‘reads’ words? Are numbers in need of interpretation? Why is it that a system of mathematics seems somehow more certain than a language? (Compare playing sudoku to filling in a crossword puzzle. At what point does one “know how to go on”?)

What Wittgenstein is trying to get us to realize is that when we read a passage we are not always nor necessarily “interpreting” the words in front of us. These are two different, although related proccesses and concepts. Compare how we use the phrases, “She read the poem (passage, letter, etc.)” and “She interpreted the poem...”

I will soon be ready to return to Heidegger’s concepts of understanding and interpretation.

In Section 32 of Being and Time, Heidegger seems to be saying that when we Articulate, we are expressing our understanding of ‘something as something’, and that understanding and interpretation precede phenomenologically articulation. I believe that this follows Kant’s move when he says that we must conceptualize an object as an object, or as a variable (‘X’). Yet it seems to me that this articulation of either our understanding or our interpretation (I am still unclear as to Heidegger’s distinction here) is redundant.

What needs to be clarified here is how terms such as ‘thing’ and ‘object’ are used. What I see is (A) these terms are used as variables or place-holders. They do not behave in any way as ‘signs’ that signify something - “This sign signifies something.” tells me nothing about the possible function of the sign, that is, its meaning. (B) To say “I see something as something,” or perhaps “I see something as itself,” again gives no useful information . In ordinary language, we would say “I see something,” or, more precisely, “I see a dog, car, tree, etc.”

What is the difference between a description and an explanation?

If we replace the sentence, “I see something as something,” with “I see the dog as a dog,” the absurdity of speaking this way becomes more apparent.

“The chalkboard appears green to me.” What do you mean? The chalkboard is green. (There is no pragmatic use for this sentence. Unless, of course, I am having an eye exam.)

06.09.06

The point is this: That word “meaning” is being used in a different way when we speak of “the meaning of a word,” as compared to when we are speaking of “the meaning of a sign.” And that means that the word “meaning” itself takes on a multiplicity of meanings. (But this does not mean that a word changes meanings like an actor changes costumes.)

But this is not enough; the differences in these meanings must be described.

“The Sunkist name signifies superior quality and good taste.” Notice how this sentence makes sense, even though philosophically speaking it is not true. The Sunkist name signifies more than the company that is named Sunkist. This leads me to ask whether “The Sunkist name signifies the company named Sunkist.” is even an appropriate use of the word.

Because this sentence tells me nothing new. (It is, absent the word ‘company’, tautological.)

For isn’t it also true to say, “The Sunkist name signifies the thing that is named Sunkist.” ?

It seems to me that if it can be proved that a system of signs derives its meaning from being contingent upon a pre-existing natural language, than it could be proved that a sign has meaning through its ‘pointing to something outside of itself’, whereas this is not necessarily true (or at least not true in the same sense) of words.

“She wore black as a sign of her mourning.” In order to understand this sign, one must have access to a pre-existing culture, one that is comprised of an infinite amount of organic language-games.

But from whence, then, do words get their meaning? Free yourself from the dichotomy of word/world.

Well, do trees have meaning? Do insects, do days and nights, mangos? What about pizzas and cars? (These are not yes or no questions. Remember that in every situation, it is still we who are speaking.)

June 4 - 7, 2006

06.04.06

When do I feel the need to ask for the meaning of... ? Because words do not have a monopoly on meaning, by which I mean (or, “in other words” or “I could also say this in the following way”) that we speak of paintings, gestures, military tactics, historical events, etc. as all ‘having meaning’.

For example: “What is the meaning of that tribal dance?” And here there seems to be a connection between the concept of meaning and the concepts of purpose and intention. But I could also say “Why are they dancing that dance?” Now, would we say that this sentence has the same meaning as the first sentence? What would the criteria be for determining this?

Perhaps we are misled by a handful of unique cases, i.e., “& means ‘and’”, “% means ‘percentage’”, etc. But in these cases we are still speaking of signs, and their meaning comes from being and being able to be translated into words. It is pointless, albeit true, to say “’And’ means ‘and’.”

06.05.06

In some situations, it may be helpful to think of mathematics as a kind of language. But this would be useful only as a kind of analogy.

Both mathematics and language, we would want to say, are governed by a system of rules, of logic or of grammar, and once we understand the rules, we “know how to proceed.” That is to say, that the rest will fall into place before our eyes.

But, upon closer inspection, we find that this is not the case, or, at least, not necessarily the case. (P.I., section X, p. 190)

P.I., p.191: “You can measure to test the ruler.”

This is one of the reasons why I want to be talking about “criteria” rather than rules. Although, on the other hand, we could be talking about rules as long as we always keep in the back of our minds the fact that the rules for the games are always changing.

Some different uses of the word ‘means’ in the English language:
1) “Red means stop.”
2) “ ‘Hund’ means ‘dog’.”
3) “When she asks, “Shouldn’t you be cleaning your room?”, she means, “Clean your room.”
4) “Professor Jones means to embarrass you in class today.”
5) “The artist means to show the horrors of war in his latest exhibition.”

To me, in (1), meaning means something akin to interpretation. (2) is an example of translation. (3) I would probably describe as explanation, while (4) and (5) both seem like examples of intention, although very different kinds of intention.

06.06.06

What is important for us to remember is that a system of signs requires interpretation - a sign points to something outside of itself, and this something is language. In other words, a system of signs is contingent upon a pre-existing language. The sign depends upon the word for its meaning. The inverse of that sentence is not true; the word is self-sufficing.

What is possible is to have a private system of signs.

06.07.06

Are Roman numerals somehow less arbitrary than Arabic numerals? Is “II” somehow closer or more representative of the idea of the number two than “2” is?

Perhaps there is no strict essential structure to language, for language is merely a social construct. But mathematics does have a central structure around which the whole system revolves, and that structure is provided by the laws of logic. “Even in Chaos World, A=A.” (But I do not begin to prove to you that I know mathematics by assuring you that “A=A.”)

Say that we create a sports league with ten teams, labeled A through J. When making the schedule, we match team (1) A against B, (2) J against C, (3) I against D, (4) H against E, and (5) G against F, and then rotate for the next set of matches, so that the schedule looks like this:
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX

A 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
B 1 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
C 2 1 5 4 4 4 4 4 4
D 3 2 1 5 4 3 3 3 3
E 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 2
F 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2
G 5 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3
H 4 4 4 4 3 2 1 5 4
I 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 5
J 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

(P.I., p. 94)

June 1, 2006

06.01.06

Being and Time, H43: “In determining itself as an entity, Dasein always does so in the light of a possibility which it is itself and which, in its very Being, it somehow understands. This is the formal meaning of Dasein’s existential constitution. But this tells us that if we are to interpret this entity ontologically, the problematic of its Being must be developed from the existentiality of its existence. This cannot mean, however, that “Dasein” is to be construed in terms of some concrete possible idea of existence.” [bedeutung, sinn, meinen, heißen, besagen, sagen]

Does this puzzle concerning the meaning of meaning exist only in English?

What is worth noting is that, in English, the same word - meaning - is being employed in two different ways when Heidegger speaks of the “formal meaning of Dasein’s existential constitution” as opposed to “this cannot mean... that ‘Dasein’ is to be construed in terms of some concrete possible idea of existence.”

The related German terms that I listed above suggests that, in German, there is a relationship between speaking, naming, signifying, and meaning. I believe that these relationships are also present in English. But what are these relationships?

Heraclitus says: “The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks nor conceals but gives a sign.”

A word is not a sign. When I speak of a word having meaning or being meaningful, I mean something different from when I speak of a sign having meaning or being meaningful.

It seems to me that a key difference is that a sign is in need of interpretation, whereas a word is not. (As long I am fluent in the language that is being spoken.)

What is a sign? When I think of signs, I think of stop signs, traffic signals, advertisements, sign language, gestures, arrows, anthropology, rituals, etc. A sing can be something given, like by Oracle of Delphi or by God (re: Levinas, “The Trace of the Other”) and is often something that is in need of interpretation. A sign points to something else, in other words, a sign signifies the signified.

The use and interpretation of signs is dependant upon a pre-existing language. A system signs has structure - it derives its meaning - from something outside of itself, and that something is language. But language is self-sufficing; there is no meta-language that gives language its meaning.

Morse Code, sign language, and analog are all examples of systems of signs. English and German are languages. (But then what of Latin or Greek? There is a reason why we call them dead languages.)

A language cannot be fabricated. It is organic.

May 10 - 28, 2006

05.10.06

When we speak of the meaning of a word, we are using the word “meaning” in a very different way than we speak of the meaning of a sign. That is to say, that the word “meaning” has a different meaning in these different contexts.

This, I believe, is what easily and so often misleads we ‘philosophers’ when we philosophize. For example, compare the statements: “What is the meaning of life?”, “What is the meaning of a word?”, “What is the meaning of the word ‘meaning’?”, “What is the meaning of the word, ‘bedeutung’?”.

Hypothesis: I do not believe that which I know, because I know it, I do not believe it.


05.27.06

What has become obvious, for me at least, is that we do not have a very clear understanding of the meaning of the word, ‘meaning’. This demands an investigation - How do we use the word ‘meaning’?

Webster’s Dictionary: meaning n. 1. what is meant; what is intended to be, or in fact is, signified, indicated, referred to, or understood; signification, purport, import, sense, or significance [the meaning of a word.1 ] 2. [Archaic] intention; purpose adj. 1. that has meaning; significant; expressive 2. intending, having purpose - meaningly adv.

So the verbal definition, in a sense, gets us no further.

Wonderful! Here I have been provided with an entire host of related word-concepts: meaning, intention, signification, indication, reference, understanding, purpose, sense, significance. What then, are the relations between these different word-concepts?

What I am asking is “How is the word “meaning” used?”, or, more precisely, “What are some ways in which the word “meaning” is used?” I do not want to propose any theory of meaning, let alone a philosophical theory of meaning. I do not put forward a positive definition of “meaning”; I only show some examples of what I consider appropriate uses of the word and comment upon them, in the hopes of achieving a slightly better understanding of the concept “meaning.”

05.28.06

On the other hand, I am still not sure that appropriateness is the proper criterion for use.

May 4, 2006

05.04.06

The mistake here is to believe that the meaning of a sentence exists outside of the sentence.

When we ask, “What is the meaning of the sentence, “I believe it is raining outside?”, it is tempting to assert that what we are asking for is something other than the sentence itself. We are led into believing this when we think of a few, particular phrases that are used in English, such “I said it, but I didn’t mean it,” “That’s not what I meant to say,” or “You’re not getting my meaning.” It seems obvious, when we look at these sentences, that there is what is said, on the one hand, and there is what is meant on the other.

I have been led to believe that what I know, I also believe.

There seems to be a relationship between Wittgenstein’s ostensive definition and the semiotics, in so far as the assumed relationship between a word and an object is the same as the assumed relationship between the sign and the signified - that relationship being, of course, meaning.

But thinking in this way eventually leads to certain irreconcilable philosophical problems.

Ask yourself: When, or on what grounds, is language in need of interpretation?

April 28, 2006

04.28.06

What do I mean when I say, “I believe X?” This is a misleading question for many reasons, not least of all because one hardly ever actually says, “I believe X.” What I want to say here is something like “The sentence “I believe X” is meaningless because it has no use in our language.” (Compare it with the sentence, “I believe in the existence of certain material objects.”)

Very well then - What is the meaning of the sentence, “I believe it is raining outside?”

April 26, 2006

04.26.06

I know what ‘thinking’ is because I know how to use it (the word).

My belief is not a sign of my belief, in a way that is similar to the fact that my uttering, “I believe X,” is not referring to my belief, nor is it referring to the fact that I believe X (or that the subject “I” stands in the relation of “belief” with the object “X.”)

Words are not signs. We speakers use words in a very different manner from how we use signs.

When I tell you (in English), “I believe it is raining outside,” you do not have to decode or interpret my words in order to understand what I am saying. (Assuming that you, too, are fluent in English.)

This demands an investigation into the meaning of the word “fluent.”

The sentence, “I know it is raining outside.” is usually redundant. The sentence, “I believe it is raining outside,” however, is not.

It is a mistake to say that language is a system of signs that correspond to a set of signifieds. This is not how language functions.

But when I tell you, “I believe it is raining outside,” I am using the word “believe” very differently than when I tell you, “I believe in God.” Likewise, when I tell you, “I believe in God,” I am using the word “believe” in a very different way than when I tell you, “I believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”

We should ask oursevles what it means to understand a word, and what it means to understand a sign. In other words, we need to investigate the meaning of the word, “understand.”