Literature/1923/Ogden

Contextual theory of reference

 * Contextual theory of reference


 * The quadrant brain (qb) coding cycle, or &sub;qb&sup;

The unit conversation may be specified as a quadrant brain coding cycle, comparable to the four-stroke internal combustion engine cycle including:
 * suction,
 * compression,
 * explosion, and
 * exhaustion.

The notion of signified, maybe regardless of the decoder and the decoded, appears too simple and ambiguous to serve as a scientific term.

The orthogonal relations are indirect. Horizontally matters the gap between the encoded and the decoded, or truism between symbolism and realism, while vertically matters intersubjectivity or conventionality between the encoder and the decoder. Language problems and studies begin with these gaps.

The metaphor may best explain the two aspects of the meaning in encoding and decoding, such as:
 * explicit vs. implicit
 * denoting vs. connoting
 * literal vs. figurative.

The message or explicit information in the medium only has an energy or potential of either upgrading or degrading the state of implicit knowledge in the user proper.

Knowledge is nowhere but in everybody's mind. Then, Popper's "objective knowledge without a knowing subject" he claims to reside in his "World 3" is a textualist fallacy or at least a misnomer. Such may be DIKW. Either may be a silly category mistake.

The qb model may well be expanded to the global scale, namely, World qb Model (WqbM).

So what?
The UC Berkeley's invisible college looks like breaking with Berkeley's idealism to be exceptionally successful.


 * See also
 * Triangulation (social science)

Excerpts

 * Sign-Situations
 * Throughout almost all our life we are treating things as signs. All experience, using the word in the widest possible sense, is either enjoyed or interpreted (i.e., treated as a sign) or both, and very little of it escapes some degree of interpretation. An account of the process of Interpretation is thus the key to the understanding of the Sign-situation, and therefore the beginning of the wisdom. It is astonishing that although the need for such an account has long been a commonplace in psychology, those concerned with the criticism and organization of our knowledge have with few exceptions entirely ignored the consequences of its neglect. (pp. 50-51)


 * Signs in Perception
 * Through this Theory of Signs then we can not only remove the standard pre-scientific paradoxes, but provide a new basis for Physics. It is commonly assumed that contrasted with what we see are the things we imagine, which are in some sense unreal. This distinction between Vision and Imagination is misleading, and of those things which we rightly claim to see the parts we do not see are as real as those we do. The other side of the moon, which we never see, is as real as the side which the vision perceives. The atoms, whose paths are photographed, the electrons which we do not 'see', are, if this interpretative effort of the physicist be sustained, as real as the signs given to perception from which he starts. When we look at our chairs and tables we 'see' a datum datissimum, then cones, then surfaces, chair, leg-seat-back, wood, bamboo, fibres, cells, molecules, atoms, electrons ... the many senses of 'see' proceeding in an ordered hierarchy as the sign-situations change. And as the point of view, interest, scientific techniques or purpose of investigation alters, so will the levels represented by these references change in their turn. (pp. 85-86)
 * cf.
 * cf.
 * "Dynamic psychology, which begins with motives rather than with sensory input, is a case in point. Instead of asking how a man's actions and experiences result from what he saw, remembered, or believed, the dynamic psychologist asks how they follow from the subject's goals, needs, or instincts."
 * cf.


 * More...
 * The Meaning of Meaning

Subpages

 * /Introduction
 * /Preface
 * /Opening quotations
 * /chapter01
 * /chapter02
 * /chapter03
 * /chapter04
 * /chapter05
 * /chapter06
 * /chapter07
 * /chapter08
 * /chapter09
 * /chapter10
 * /Summary
 * /Appendices
 * /Supplements

Reviews

 * Edward Sapir (1923)
 * "An Approach to Symbolism." The Freeman 7 (22 August 1923) 572-73. Reprinted in Pierre Swiggers (2008) pp. 163-165. http://books.google.com/books?id=jMtRIJoOlOUC


 * John Dewey


 * Bertrand Russell (1926)
 * "The Meaning of Meaning." Dial Vol. 81 (August 1926) pp. 114-121. Reprinted in Gordon (1994) pp. 1-12. http://books.google.com/books?id=fE8JYH1eBoEC


 * cf. 1976/Skinner


 * John Paul Russo
 * "Semantics," in: W. Terrence Gordon, ed., C. K. Ogden and Linguistics (Vol. 2. From Russell to Russo: Reviews and Commentaries) London: Routledge / Thoemmes Press, 1994. p. 373.


 * Words are like 'landmarks in a vast but finite and well nigh inflexible world of symbols', wrote Edward Sapir in his review of the book, 'enlarging or contracting their hospitality, yet always mysteriously themselves. Their hypnotized creators have no recourse but to pronounce them sanctuaries and to look anxiously for the divinity that must dwell in each of them.'


 * From the Back Cover
 * of 1989 impression http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-C-K-Ogden/dp/0156584468
 * "Language is the most important of all the instruments of civilization." The authors state this premise boldly in their preface to "The Meaning of Meaning," a classic work whose significance--and challenge--to the study of language, literature, and philosophy has remained undiminished since its original publication.


 * Much about language continues to be only hazily understood, distorted by our habitual attitude--often one of indifference--toward words, or by lingering assumptions based on discredited theories. What IS the relationship between words and what the words refer to? Between words and the way we think? Can understanding such matters lead to greater precision in communication? Readers considering these questions find themselves at the crossroads of linguistics and communications theory, of literary criticism and philosophy--an interdisciplinary nexus claimed by the increasingly influential field of semiotics--and "The Meaning of Meaning" will prove, as it has over the last six decades, an essential resource.


 * In his introduction Umberto Eco, eminent novelist and, not coincidentally, semiotician, provides a fascinating perspective on this pioneering work that continues to disturb intellectual complacency and provoke thought and discussion.


 * See also
 * /Leon