From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Nov 03 1999 - 10:11:37 MST
At 12:37 AM 3/11/99 -0500, Dan wrote a nice summary, adding:
>I presented an example similar to this when I said that the character 7
>simply referred to that theoretical invention of ours, the number seven.
>So with the real world, balls, horses, etc. Each of these words refers to
>internal theoretical constructs; we judge the theories based on their
>explanatory/predictive value.
Standard apres-Sausurre poststructural (Derridean/Lacanian) analysis might
cast this in terms of signifiers, signifieds and (inaccessible) referents,
with many signifieds being, in turn, signifiers pointed to by other
signifiers. Rudely: signifier = word, signified = concept, referent =
thing in the word that the concept stands in for, to some degree of
adequacy. A symbol is a seamless blend of signifier and signified.
In practice, referents often seem to drop out of this account. Putnam's
version, as Dan describes it, seems to work the same way.
I assume a cog sci/neurosci account would want some more hidden layers. Dan
says:
>Under anti-realism, the internal symbol "ball" simply refers to the
>internal theoretical construct of a ball.
Here, a poststruck account would presumably say that the signifier `ball'
(whether inwardly thought or uttered aloud/written) stands in for the
signified <ramified concept of a ball>. The cog sci equivalent, I assume,
would be the neural attractor or web synaptically activated by most
situations that involve either the idea of a ball or the perception of an
actual or represented ball in the outside world.
I conclude that Putnam and poststructuralism offer a story that's not as
ridiculous as it first sounds (and is similar to Humberto Maturana's,
perhaps),
[ e.g., http://www.oikos.org/maten.htm ]
but both risk losing their grip on/need for access to a genuine referent
out there (whatever that means in a QT/relativistic universe).
Damien Broderick
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