Erin,
You said:
>I don't think 'volition' is a fair comparison.
>Our whole grammar depends on 'subject's and 'objects" but
>volition is more of a 'nuance meaning'.
I was going to say something about grammar, but linguistics is a little out
of my field. However, I do know this: Chomsky developed a theory of
linguistics that posits that all grammar is at root bottom the same. I
think its called 'depth grammar.' I'm not sure, maybe somebody knows
around here. The point, though, is that an historicist position, which is
what I'm describing, repudiates Chomsky's claim of universality. I would
still maintain the historical contingency of language and grammar. As
such, I would still maintain that my comparison of 'volition' and
'subject/object' holds up. In fact, I would argue that 'subject/object' is
has a 'nuance meaning' the same as 'volition.' We built up to the
subject/object distinction.
>I think it is unclear whether Artistotle had the concept
>of volition without the exact term.
>It reminds me of when there isn't an exact translation
>for a word in a foreign language. To explain this word
>sometimes people will give a short anecdote to what this
>word means. The person gets the word without having a term
>for it. Do they have that concept? I don't know, I can
>see how you would argue both ways.
I'm a little unclear what you're asking here. However, bringing up foreign
language translation is an excellent illustration. A culture doesn't have
a term until it is introduced to them or, rather, there are two ways a
culture expands its vocabulary: the creation of new words and metaphors and
the introduction of untranslatable words. If they like it, they keep it.
Looking in a dictionary solidifies the wide range of languages we've
"stolen" from.
>I guess i still see it just being an implicit assumption
>that doesn't really get talked about until modern day fields
>that exam this assumption.
I won't deny that fact that their are implicit assumptions working in our
langauge. Explicating these assumptions helps us overcome them (if they
need to be overcome). However, think of it this way: were you able to
articulate the problems you had with subject/object thinking until you
began to talk this way? If you had been introduced to an alternative
distinction, you might have been able to articulate your misgivings, but I
doubt they would have been able to be directly equated with the misgivings
of a subject/object distinction. See what I'm saying? (I'm having
articulating myself, at the moment;-) Think of Pirsig's talk of platypi.
These platypi are linguistic. The problems and platypi arise because of
the way we talk. So, to get rid of them, we need to change the way we talk.
At least, this would be an historicist interpretation. The Chomskyes of
the world would definitely be more inclined to believe that there is a root
bottom constant in our language and, therefore, description of the world.
Matt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
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 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:32 BST