Ah, shared meaning. How many times did we hash that out in my Wittgenstein class? Actually, I'd be interested in hearing how other post-structuralists, particularly those coming primarily from a different perspective, would answer the question. You'd expect cathexys to be all about the shared meaning.
Practically, "assume it works and lump along until we realize we're misunderstanding each other and call a time out to hash out a more precise blend of fuzziness" sounds like it should work, and it reminds me (forgive me for totally going textbook on you, but I'm not sure of myself to do anything but retreat into my studies) of Wittgenstein's appropriation of St. Augustine's theory of language (insofar as he had one) at the beginning of the Philosophical Investigations: language is a tool we (learn as children to) use to get what we want, and when we don't get what we want we assume the tool is broken. Note this isn't really an account of shared meaning so much as a constant translation process between two foreign languages; any other sense is always-already alien to us.
It's precisely this solipsistic view of language that Wittgenstein goes on to dismantle in the Philosophical Investigations, to replace it with a notion of shared meaning. But I don't think I understand how it works--or even if it works--well enough to explain it. (Which is why they don't let undergraduates teach college, hee.)
Hmm. I once worked out Saussure for myself by doing a post called "Linguistics with Dawn and River" in which I played with images of fannish characters and thought baloons and speech balloons and tried to figure out the connection between thinking about vampires and talking about vampires. Maybe I should do the same thing with Wittgenstein.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-13 11:34 am (UTC)Practically, "assume it works and lump along until we realize we're misunderstanding each other and call a time out to hash out a more precise blend of fuzziness" sounds like it should work, and it reminds me (forgive me for totally going textbook on you, but I'm not sure of myself to do anything but retreat into my studies) of Wittgenstein's appropriation of St. Augustine's theory of language (insofar as he had one) at the beginning of the Philosophical Investigations: language is a tool we (learn as children to) use to get what we want, and when we don't get what we want we assume the tool is broken. Note this isn't really an account of shared meaning so much as a constant translation process between two foreign languages; any other sense is always-already alien to us.
It's precisely this solipsistic view of language that Wittgenstein goes on to dismantle in the Philosophical Investigations, to replace it with a notion of shared meaning. But I don't think I understand how it works--or even if it works--well enough to explain it. (Which is why they don't let undergraduates teach college, hee.)
Hmm. I once worked out Saussure for myself by doing a post called "Linguistics with Dawn and River" in which I played with images of fannish characters and thought baloons and speech balloons and tried to figure out the connection between thinking about vampires and talking about vampires. Maybe I should do the same thing with Wittgenstein.