From: Erin Noonan (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 08 2002 - 03:19:22 BST
>Erin,
>
>MATT: "Actually, now that I think about it, reality is prior to language."
>
>SQUONK: "Experience is prior to language."
>
>ERIN: "Aren't sounds part of experience? Wouldn't it be that experience
>is prior analysis of these sounds? Language include the sounds and the
>analysis of the sounds."
>
>MATT:
>A pragmatist would respond that, once we get rid of the notion of language
>as a medium of representation or expression, we can view language as a tool
>to cope with reality. So, noises that you don't understand might not count
>as a language, but the question is, "How does this help you cope with
>reality?" How does an untranslated language help you cope with your
>environment?
>
>You see, the conception of experience I'm working with is just that:
>experience, period. No "prior" to anything. Experience is the manifold of
>sensations that bombard us every second of every day. Everything is an
>experience, including the hearing of noises that constitute a spoken
>language. Taking a holistic, Gestalt stance, experience also includes
>so-called tertiary experiences, so that we directly experience "complex
>experiences" like snow (which Lockeans would reduce into secondary and
>primary properties). So, the question is, what's more helpful, you
>understanding my saying, "I'm going to punch you in the face" or you not
>understanding it? Put this way, I almost guarantee that its more helpful
>to understand it (even if you are a masochist).
>
>Matt
>
Hi Matt,
I agree when you say "the conception of experience I'm working with is just
that:>experience, period. No "prior" to anything. Experience is the manifold
of >sensations that bombard us every second of every day."
That's what I meant that language is both the sounds and the
analysis of sounds. The sounds are part of the sensations
that bombard us and so "experience is
prior to language" isn't the greatest way to word it.
Babies experience language without acquisition of the analytic tool to
understand it.
You kind of lost me with this:
So, the question is, what's more helpful, you
>understanding my saying, "I'm going to punch you in the face" or you not
>understanding it? Put this way, I almost guarantee that its more helpful
>to understand it (even if you are a masochist).
yes it's helpful to have the tool to understand
these sounds that make up this messege but this point is lost
on me?
erin
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