From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: causal criteria of meaning
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 17:06:41 +0200


Hi all--

Since nobody's taken a stab at Howard's query yet, I guess I'll have a quick
go at it.

>On the basis of causal criteria we know meanings to be real.  They
>make a difference to the state of the world that would otherwise
>have occurred.  For example, words are said and a door is slammed.
>Had the words been interpreted differently, the door, noises and
>bodies would all be otherwise.  Or someone stops at a stoplight
>because it is red.
>
>What kind of cause is meaning?  Material, formal, efficient or
>final?

I'll forego repeating my dissatisfaction with Aristotle's list, and suggest
that meaning can be all four types, depending on circumstances.  1) When I
revise a sentence, meaning is the material cause; that is, it is the
"object" I work upon.  2) When a write a sonnet, the sonnet structure is a
formal cause.  3) When I'm driving and stop at a red light (as in your
example), the signal light is an efficient cause.  4) When I post this
message to the Bhaskar list, my interest in CR's relation to cultural
analysis is the final cause.

A little reflection suggests that meaning usually (more likely, always)
involves all four types of cause at once.  Hence Howard's question.
Arguably, this is because of communication's "performative" character
(taking the term in Austin's sense), which is of course cool by me.

Yow.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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