From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 27 Oct 2002 - 10:26:22 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> My problem is not with the individual existence of each tree, but with the
> impossibility of talking about trees in general. For every individual
tree
> would have to have an individual name if the type/token distinction,
> under which each tree is a token of the type 'tree', is denied. Wade
> was actually doing this concerning actions, but you cannot pick and
> choose where the type/token structure of language applies. And when
> one eliminates that distinction, one eliminates the grounds of shared
> meaning from which meaningful communication and discourse may
> emerge.
In Wade's scheme you have to have each time a different language to
talk about any tree individualistic, that is what you' re saying here, no !?
But is that, in the real sense of the word, a problem !?
Talking about the rain forest doesn 't mean we deny the existence
of other forest in the world !?
Each forest has its name, place and function in the total picture
of what we see as nature, and IMO if I talk about the trees which
are standing in the neighbourhood where I live I talk about specific
trees, not about those trees of the Amazone.
So in that sense am I not talking about those in the individualistic
type/ token distinction !?
In the way Wade applied this to actions I can understand his
motivation because I think I am on his side on this one.
My stance is, and has always been, that within society/ culture
we have to look at the individual and his actions to understand
society/ culture in its whole.
The fact that you or I behave in a specific way, than collective
way doesn 't mean we haven 't individualistic aspect/ affects towards
it_ our genetic/ memetic isomorphism makes that possible.
The main point of my discourse is that within society/ culture
everything is biased upon a collective way of seeing things, where
IMO the basis has always been individualistic, groupsbounding_
in any way, like Gould mentioned is just another step in evolution.
Goulds Full House idea implies that individualism was the norm
to beat, individual selection was overrun by the space groupse-
lection needed, and what counted for groupsize, is now still the
norm for any other social- mutation,... including language.
Regards,
Kenneth
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