Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Actualism and Thisness', 'Letters to Jourdain' and 'Logic as Semiotic: Theory of Signs'

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / a. Sentence meaning

8446	We understand new propositions by constructing their sense from the words [Frege]
	Full Idea: The possibility of our understanding propositions which we have never heard before rests on the fact that we construct the sense of a proposition out of parts that correspond to words.
	From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.43)
	A reaction: This is the classic statement of the principle of compositionality, which seems to me so obviously correct that I cannot understand anyone opposing it. Which comes first, the thought or the word, may be a futile debate.

19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories

7634	Icons resemble their subject, an index is a natural sign, and symbols are conventional [Peirce, by Maund]
	Full Idea: For Peirce there are three different kinds of sign, which are different kinds of representation, built on different relationships: an 'icon' represents what it resembles, an 'index' is a natural sign, and a 'symbol' is a conventional sign.
	From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (Logic as Semiotic: Theory of Signs [1897]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.4
	A reaction: Maund makes use of natural signs (like footprints) to explain representative perception. Peirce's distinctions seem useful in philosophy of mind generally, if the brain somehow represents what it experiences. How subjective are signs?

19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference

8449	Senses can't be subjective, because propositions would be private, and disagreement impossible [Frege]
	Full Idea: If the sense of a name was subjective, then the proposition and the thought would be subjective; the thought one man connects with this proposition would be different from that of another man. One man could not then contradict another.
	From: Gottlob Frege (Letters to Jourdain [1910], p.44)
	A reaction: This is an implicit argument for the identity of 'proposition' and 'thought'. This argument resembles Plato's argument for universals (Idea 223). See also Kant on existence as a predicate (Idea 4475). But people do misunderstand one another.