Language
in general:
-
Man
is furnished with language.
-
It’s
a great instrument.
-
It’s
the common tie of society.
Words
are signs of internal conception.
-
Stand
as marks for ideas.
-
Signs
are also comprehended as ideas.
-
Use
of general terms:
o Then general ideas
o The Particular ideas.
There
are words that stand for the absence of ideas:
-
The
negatives
-
They
relate positive things and signify their absence.
Signfication
of words:
-
man
needed a system of signs to represent his invisible thoughts or ideas.
-
Words
were developed arbitrarily.
o They do not sound like
their ideas
o Otherwise all men would
have the same language.
-
Words
only stand in the mind that uses them.
o Needed to record
thoughts.
-
Man
speaks so that he may be understood.
o To make known his ideas
to the hearer.
***
Words have the meaning of the speaker, but also the meaning crafted by the
hearer. They signify in multiple dimensions and levels of complexity.
***
Words call forth an interpretation
***
Art calls forth an interpretation:
-
Art
compels interpretation.
-
Interpretation
is a mode of thought.
-
Translation
from experience to idea is a mode of thought.
Signs
do not exist before thought:
-
Otherwise
man would have signs of things not conceived.
Words
stand for a man’s ideas:
-
and
how he would express them.
-
The
complexity of understanding resides with the hearer:
o Gold may mean – color,
metal, weighty, malleability or wealth.
o The final meaning stands
with the hearer.
People
assume words mean the same to others as they to themselves.
-
they
believe words stand as reality.
-
We
screw up words if we give them different meaning than what we’ve given them.
-
Words
can excite certain ideas as the objects themselves.
-
We
gain a familiarity with words and use them improperly.
People
parrot many words with understanding them.
Words
are only meaningful when the sound and idea are appropriately designated to
which they stand.
Words
frequently fail to excite the hearer in the same manner they excite the
speaker.
Man
can make words stand for any idea he pleases.
Common
use creates words to have shared meaning.
***
Uncommon use forces individual interpretation.
-
there
is no standard to draw from.
Unless
a man can convey his thoughts with the same meaning to the fearer, he is not
speaking intelligently.
-
They
can only be signs unto themselves.
New
thought or interpretations remain with the individual until they can be
articulated into words:
-
Or
conveyed through experience.
There
are no ideas, just notions of experience, or possible experiences.
-
We’ve
just become familiar with language and reason.
-
Thought
and ideas are derived from experience, a way recall or project events.
General
terms:
-
Most
words are general
o By necessity
o It is impossible for everything
in the world to have its own name or reference.
Knowledge
found in particular things enlarges general names.
Ideas
become general by separating them from the circumstance of time and place.
Words
came from the ordinary proceedings of man’s minds and knowledge.
General
and universals are creations of man and do not belong to the existence of
things.
-
And
they concern only signs.
-
Whether
words or ideas.
Universals
do not apply as all things live as particulars in existence.
Generals
do not represent plurals.
-
Man
and men would mean the same thing.
-
-
They are an essence of sorts.
-
A
species
o That are all abstract
§ Abstracts are agreed
upon conformities
o The sorting of abstract
makes general ideas.
Locke,
John. “Of Words” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed.
Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton & Co., 2010.
621-625. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment