a. A natural process that would happen anyway. Example: Growing old.
b. A social requirement inflicted on someone no matter what his will. Example: Income taxes.
2. Then perhaps a right is a freedom granted to a person by another person or group of persons.
3. The people of the United States grant rights to individuals such as:
a. The right to or not to vote.
b. The right to or not to leave the country.
c. The right to or not to sue.
d. The right to or not to kill unborn babies.
e. The right to or not to have an attorney when charged with a crime.
4. Parents sometimes grant rights to their children, such as:
a. The right to or not to take the family automobile.
b. The right to or not to attend church.
c. The right to or not to keep a messy room.
5. God grants only one right to His children:
a. The right to label good and evil.
b. The ability to choose and to do good or evil is not a right. No one has a right to do evil before God.
6. Observations about rights:
a. A right is worth only the power invested by the granting agency to guarantee that right. Example: If the government does not assure that you can vote when you get to the polls, your “right to vote” is worthless.
b. Rights may be withdrawn by the granting agency. Example: Martial law suspends many individual rights.
c. There is and can be no “right to life,” for no one can guarantee it. What government presently guarantees is freedom from government harassment if one aborts one’s child. But in a recent court case it was decided that mother’s do not have the right to abuse their unborn children with drugs and then give birth to them.
d. There is no right to health, for no one can guarantee it.
e. There is no right to education, for no one can guarantee it. But some societies guarantee a right to schooling.
f. There is no right to be free from racial discrimination, for no one can enforce it. But there is a right to sue and obtain damages for racial discrimination in specific contexts (e.g., hiring) if such can be proved in a court of law.
g. Who has rights to the public treasury? Only those who have legal entitlements. Do AIDS victims have a right to research money to find a cure for the disease quickly? Only if some government body passes a law to that effect.
h. God wills that men grant each other the rights to protection of life, freedom of conscience, and the right to control of property. Any society that grants its citizens these rights must be upheld by citizens if they are servants of God. Otherwise, God holds them blameless if, under His direction, they overthrow those governments.
Chauncey C. Riddle Brigham Young University 27 Mar 1987
Riddle, Chauncey Cazier (1987) “The Logic of Meaning,” Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 20. Available at: http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/dlls/vol13/iss1/20
Logic has two major applications to language. One is the relating of truth-value, taking units of language as wholes and relating them to each other in the manner of the propositional calculus. This we shall call macro-logic. The second application is the study of the logic of meaning relationships in language, which we denominate as the micro-logic of language. The concern of this paper will be with the micro-logic of meaning. But first we must lay some groundwork.
A. Background Considerations
Certain premises govern all that is said in this paper. The first is that language is a system of actions whereby a person affects the universe about him. It is an intentionally devised and intentionally used human tool. The principal use of this tool is one person affecting or controlling others. We note the following categories of this social affect and control by distinguishing three kinds of language usage:
Phatic usage: Language used to fill up time.
Esthetic usage: Language used to stimulate imagery and/or feelings.
Informative usage: Language used to formulate testable hypotheses about the universe.
It is noteworthy that in usage, these categories are not usually found in the pure state. Language usage may be phatic, esthetic and informative all at the same time. But usually one of these functions will be dominant in a given usage.
The informative use of language itself has three subdivisions:
Disclosure: The speaker reveals his inner states. Example: I have a headache.
Directive: The speaker reveals his desired hearer response. Example: What time is it?
Description: The speaker reveals his ideas about something outside himself. Example: This dog is old.
Every informative use of language is disclosure, because the speaker is revealing himself, but some disclosures are also commands (directives). Some disclosure commands are also descriptions. In all three the speaker reveals himself, but in some he purports to reveal the nature of the universe as well.
Revelations about the universe may take one of two forms, or be couched in two different types of language. The difference comes in the mode and precision of definition being used. One type of language is “ordinary,” the common vernacular languages of mankind which everyone learns as a child. The basic form of definition used in this language is ostensive. By induction a person learns to see pattern in objects which arc given names by his mentors. Dogs have aspects in common, and as one observes enough dogs a pattern forms in his mind which he then uses both to understand and to indicate that pattern when conversing with others. This kind of pattern or meaning is not exact, is not usually specifiable in terms of a specific number of elements all of which are common to the pattern dog. This is “family resemblance” meaning, as celebrated by Wittgenstein.
The second type of informative language is technical usage. Technical terms are those which have a precise meaning, a meaning based on essence rather than family resemblance. To have an essence means that there is a finite set of qualifications which necessarily apply to an object being referred to. This does not mean that the object may have no other characteristics: it need not be pure. It means that speaker and hearer both intend that the object referred to has at least the characteristics, the “essence,” agreed upon by prior stipulation. For instance, to be a legal contract in the technical sense, certain factors are stipulated in advance, such as:
1) both parties must be competent to contract; 2) there must be a meeting of the minds; 3) there must be an anticipated benefit to both parties; and 4) there must be an exchange of consideration.
If those stipulations were the agreed essence of a contract in a society, any agreement lacking one of those components would not be considered a legal contract and could not be enforced.
It is noteworthy that many of the terms used in a technical listing of essential characteristics themselves need further technical definition, such as “meeting of the minds” and “consideration” in the example of the preceding paragraph. But eventually all technical definitions must rest on terms which are not technically defined. Formally speaking, this is to say that defined terms must be defined in terms of undefined primitives. In the real world, our primitive definitions are non-technical, family resemblance definitions which we invent by induction through ostensive definition. This is to say that all technical use of language is embedded in a larger context of ordinary language. Technicality is a matter of degree. Only one term of a conversation might be used technically. Or a majority may be used technically. When the number of technical terms becomes so great that the non-initiated hearer cannot grasp the gist of the conversation, the language has become technically oriented jargon.
Meaning is a matter of pattern. The meaning of any word or sentence is the pattern of ideas which the speaker intends or the hearer infers. The atomic elements of these patterns are either irreducible sensory items (a shade of blue, the fragrance of lilac) or constructed elements (line, wishing, angry). Constructed elements usually may be further subdivided at the constructor’s desire; thus to be elemental is to be considered elemental by the constructor. The meaning of tulip is, for ordinary language, the indication of a spring blooming bulb which produces a flower of greatly varied shapes and colors, the pattern being a vague one which enables its constructor to identify tulips with a high (say 90%) rate of success. The technical meaning of tulip specifies exactly the parameters necessary for a plant to be tulip, enabling the user to identify correctly with something like a 99% rate of success.
B. Parameters Necessary for Truth
We are now in a position to ask, what are the parameters of information necessary to make an informative statement about the universe? We find that there are four basic kinds of information necessary to form a minimum complete statement.
These are:
a) A target pattern, b) An overlay pattern, c) Affirmation or denial of the overlay, d) Specification of relevance factors.
We will explain each of these factors.
The target pattern is something like the subject of a sentence, but it is the meaning subject, not the grammatical subject. In the sentence “It is raining,” the target pattern is “current weather.” Be it a simple or a complex pattern, the target pattern is simply the subject being operated upon in a given situation of linguistic usage.
The overlay pattern is the pattern being brought to bear upon or to modify the target pattern. A sentence functions to overlay or to add the overlay pattern upon the target pattern. In the example of the preceding paragraph, “raining” is the overlay pattern.
The third clement of an informative sentence is the affirmation or denial of the overlay. Affirmation is to assert the overlay, as in “It is raining.” This sentence would be used principally in case the pattern of current weather in unknown to the hearer or to emphasize the fact of the overlay. Or we might deny the overlay by saying, “It is not raining.” This sentence would ordinarily be used when the hearer is uncertain whether or not it is raining, or has been afraid it might be raining, or believes that it is raining because someone has said so. Affirmation or denial is strictly an on/off matter. It admits of no degrees or variations. Should degrees or variations be necessary, those factors would be put into the pattern of the target or overlay class, as in “It probably is raining.” In this example we have an affirmation of overlay of “probably is raining” on target pattern “My idea of current weather.” This shifts the focus of the sentence from description of the weather to epistemological considerations about whether one knows what the weather is or not.
The fourth consideration, relevance factors, give the information necessary to test the pattern established by overlay or subtraction of overlay against the “real world.” Four relevance factors are necessary: 1) Spatial location, 2) Temporal location, 3) Mode of reference, and 4) Specification of ordinary or technical usage.
Spatial location is the designation of the boundaries within which the overlay pattern is asserted to hold. Just where is it raining? Difficulty of description limits most usages of the example sentence to specification of the fact that it is raining or not raining at a particular spot. Weather persons on television have the ability to show satellite photos with areas of rain indicated.
Temporal location is again best done by specifying time when it was raining at a particular place, or saying that rain began at a certain time and continued to a certain time. To speak of future time is to forecast, which is the relevant issue since the past is already gone and that past rain rains no more. But future rain has very practical consequences. Needless to say, forecasting future time rain is a guess, but sometimes a very sophisticated guess which turns out to be vindicated.
Mode of reference designates whether one is speaking in the disclosure, directive, or descriptive mode. The same sentence could be used in any of the three modes, hence the need to specify. In real life this factor is seldom overly specified because the context makes evident what is going on. But sometimes the context is insufficient. “It is raining” could be a description if the person has been asked what the weather is. That sentence could be a directive if the speaker previously had told the hearer to move indoors as soon as it started raining. And that sentence could be a disclosure if it is a response to the question “What is your guess as to what the weather is right now?”
The specification of ordinary or technical usage is of great practical importance. Weather reports almost always are given in ordinary language. This means that though rain is reported over a certain area at a certain time, that does not mean that every open square foot of the area is being rained upon. The meaning is approximate, family resemblance type, and is thus usually given in percentages. “There is a 70% chance of rain falling in this area.” Such a statement seems silly when one looks out the window and sees pouring rain. But the statement is intended to give a percentage over an area, not at a specific location. Technical usage would have to assure rain or not rain at a specific number of specified areas.
Thus we see that two kinds of information are needed in the relevance factors of language usage: Where and when to look to see if something is true, and what kind of language usage the speaker is using to assert what he does. Only as these relevance factors are explicitly specified can the exact nature of the utterance be described. This is to say that we are attempting to give a technical definition of the relevance factors necessary to linguistic usage.
It is interesting to note what is necessary when verbal communication is reduced to the absolute minimum, when context provides everything but the minimum. The minimum is the specification of the overlay pattern. Thus when someone cries out “Fire,” this word is a specification of the overlay. The target pattern (conditions), the affirmation, the present time and place, the mode of reference, and the ordinary use of language are all assumed.
C. The work of Jean-Marie Zemb
In an unpublished paper entitled “The Trios, the Duos and the Solo in the Structure of Propositions” (Translated by Alan K. Melby of Brigham Young University), Jean-Marie Zemb of the College of France has approached the problem of the relationship of the grammar of linguistic usage as related to the structure of meaning. He concludes that the structure of meaning is not tied to grammatical form as is inferred by the hearer as the hearer infers the meaning of the sentential formulation.
Zemb analyzes the structure of meaning in a manner similar to that which has been done in this paper. He concludes that the structure of theproposition is that of thema-phema-rhema. Thema is analogous to what we have designated as the target class. Rhema is like that which we have called the overlay class. Phema is a pattern like that of the affirmation or denial of the overlay.
If one uses Zemb’s terminology we see that a fourth element is necessary. That fourth element has been called above the relevance factors. To match Zemb’s terminology one might designate these relevance factors as schema, the pattern or ordering of the assertion relative to the universe of human experience.
Zemb has made a contribution by showing clearly that grammar and meaning are not correlated uniquely. His suggestion of the thema-phema-rhema is seen to be consonant with the pattern employed in this paper. Zemb’s focus is on the proposition, whereas this paper focuses on the assertion as the basic unit of human language. But it is possible that a fruitful accommodation of terminology may consolidate Zemb’s work and the present paper into a viable approach in the philosophy of language.
D. Conclusion
The conclusion of the matter is that the micro-logic of meaning is very simple compared with the macro-logic of truth. The logic of meaning is simple addition or subtraction of overlay pattern to or from a target pattern. Using this device of overlay recursively, any meaning can be reduced down to its simplest elements or built up into a most complex idea, such as the idea of the universe.
1. There are two aspects to the logic of language:
a. The logic of micro-language, of kernel sentences, which are the units of meaning in language.
b. The logic of macro-language, of complex sentences, which are the units of truth-value in language.
2. Micro-language functions to create meaning units by the addition and subtraction of meaning patterns in kernel sentences, which are semantically incomplete sentences of the language.
3. There are four parts to a kernel sentence:
a. A designator, pointing to the particularity of the subject pattern (class).
b. A pattern name, designating the universality of the subject pattern (class).
c. A copula, asserting the relationship between the subject pattern (class) and the predicate pattern (class).
d. A pattern name, designating the universal aspect of the predicate class.
4. In a kernel sentence, a designated particular instance (pointed to by the designator) of a class, the subject (which is the class being operated upon) has added to or subtracted from it (the operation performed by the copula) another class or pattern (the predicate, or that which is added to or subtracted from the subject).
Examples:
a. That ball is red.
b. That ball is not red. (For this to be a kernel sentence, the subject “ball” must already have as part of its meaning or pattern the pattern of being red. The “red” aspect of the pattern is then subtracted in that kernel sentence.)
Though these sample sentences are grammatically complete, they are not yet semantically complete. Every well-formed kernel sentence must be grammatically complete.
5. A kernel sentence of the micro-language is changed into a sentence of the macro-language by the addition of three variables that make it semantically complete:
a. Designation of the truth or falsity of the meaning of the kernel sentence.
b. Designation of the spatial context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false.
c. Designation of the temporal context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false. (If we humans develop a useful space-time continuum in which everything can be given unique space-time coordinates, then b. and c. above would collapse into a single variable.
Examples
a. Kernel: This he is a liar.
b. Truth-value: Default position: assertion of truth.
c. Spatial limits: Here in this room.
d. Temporal limits: Last five minutes.
e. Translation: He just told a lie to me, and unless he repents, he will be and remain a liar henceforth, wherever he is.
6. Most human logical systems such as logic, class logic, propositional logic, etc., are operations upon kernel units of meaning taken as lumps. Sentences that use such logic are thus macro-language operations. Macro-language transactions are truth transaction, whereas micro-language transactions are meaning transactions. Aristotelian logic is a primitive micro-logic, or logic of meaning.
Definition of “language”: A language is the public patterned expressions of an individual which have been established and normed in and relative to a physical and social context. Thus:
Thinking is not a language, though it may use language.
Physical motions may be a language, if patterned and socially normed.
Parrot talk may use a language, but only in the same sense that a tape-recorder does.
To be “established and normed” in a physical context means that the definitions are shared in some community.
Postulates of this system of thinking about language:
1. All meaning is personal. (Symbols or actions do not mean anything. Only people mean things through symbols or actions.)
Thus symbols have modal usages but no literal meaning.
2. All meaning is total. (To elicit a total understanding of what any person means by a given symbolic usage, the entire contents of his mind would need to be understood.)
3. No symbol usage should be considered to be self-referential. (To avoid Russell’s paradox.)
4. All meaning is abstract. (Neither a part nor the total of phenomenal particularity is ever “meant” by a person. We think only in terms of universals. All so-called “particulars” of thought are actually a kind of universal, including proper names.)
5. There are two basic kinds of languages:
a. In vernacular languages, words represent concept universals which have only a “family resemblance” meaning pattern in common.
b. In technical languages, words represent concepts which have a common essence. (Thus only technical languages can successfully and fully use logic, for there the problem of excluded middle is taken care of.)
6. The general purpose of language is to assist the individual mind to become adequate to reality, to inform the mind so that the person can act more intelligently.
The unit of language is the assertion. An assertion is a patterned action by which an individual expresses itself agentively. Every assertion may be (must be) analyzed into four parts to be understood by a given observer:
A speaker intention must be hypothesized.
The patterned expression must be identified. (The actual words.)
A meaning pattern must be hypothesized. (Hearer supposes what the speaker intends his words to mean.)
A relevance or truth-function must be hypothesized.
This four-part meaning pattern is seen in watching an archer. To understand the archer one must put four pieces of information together:
one must decide what the intent of the archer is, to aim at a target, as in target practice, or to aim at people. Is he friend or foe?
one must have some sense of what the archer is shooting. Is he shooting wavering reeds or steel-tipped war arrows?
one must note at what the archer is aiming. If he is aiming at me, I need to get the message, the meaning.
I must have some sense of what will result if his arrow strikes me: serious wound and death?
Meaning is always the relating of universals (patterns). To say “this arrow is poison-tipped” is to overlay the target pattern (this arrow) with another pattern (poison-tipped) in an affirmative relationship. The logic of meaning is simple: it is simply either the overlay of a secondary pattern on target pattern (affirmation); or it is the blocking of overlay of secondary pattern on target pattern (denial: negation or subtraction).
In a modified Zemb frame this would mean that thema is the target pattern or universal, rhema is the secondary or overlay pattern, and the phema is the signaling of addition or non-addition of patterns (which includes both subtraction and simple blocking of addition).
Meaning does not exhaust the assertion, however. Meaning establishes only the possibility for concept formation which the speaker wishes to emphasize. How that asserted concept formation is to be related to the universe must next be described.
There are three kinds of assertions:
Disclosures: Revelation of personal thoughts and feelings by a speaker.
Directives: Attempts by a speaker to produce specific actions in a hearer.
Descriptions: Attempts by a speaker to enable the hearer to conceptualize a reality external to both the speaker and the hearer (either in the absence or the presence of the thing being talked about).
When a hearer attempts to understand a speaker, in addition to forming a meaning for the symbols used, the hearer must decide whether the speaker is using language in the disclosure mode, the directive mode or the descriptive mode. If the hearer selects the disclosure mode, he cannot look for a referent, but will look to see if the actions of the speaker are consistent with his professed disclosure. If the hearer selects the directive mode, he will act or not act, as he thinks appropriate, and then watch to see what the subsequent reaction of the speaker will be. If the hearer selects the description mode, then the hearer will look to the universe, to the referent if possible, to see if the speaker spoke truthfully.
In all interpretation, the hearer must judge the relevance of the speaker’s assertion to something in the context which the speaker and hearer have in common, which must include relevance in space and time. This establishment of the relevance of the meaning of the assertion is a fourth element. In terms of Zemb’s analysis, I would call this the schema, the hearer’s perception as to how the assertion relates to the universe.
The crux of the matter is the addition of schema to the thema-phema-rhema may remain constant while the schema varies. It may mean a disclosure of anger and impatience: I have told you a thousand times where the book is. It may be a directive: Don’t ask me; look it up for yourself in the book on the table. Or it may be description: The book is not in its normal place because I just put it on the table.
Thus there is a minimum of four things which must be established to complete an assertion: target class (thema), overlay class (rhema), addition or non-addition of the overlay class (phema), and the time, place and respect in which the thema-phema-rhema is to apply to the universe (schema).
I agree with Zemb that the logic of assertions is separate from the syntax of the language. Syntax is patterned expression which varies from culture to culture. Assertions are independent of cultural expression as relationships among speaker-hearer-universe.
One. Suppose that someone says, “I have and use successfully a private language.” We ask: “Is this language made up of rules? (Standard patterns of symbol usage).” He will probably reply, “Indeed it is.” And we say: “How are you sure that your language does not drift, that you use it consistently through time?” He might say, “It is a genuine language. It has regularity. It is not just my whim as to how I use it.” Then we come to the point: “What is the evidence that you use this private language you have consistently, other than your own testimony?” If intelligent, he will likely say, “My private language is a technical language. Every term is carefully defined according to the essence involved. When I use a term, I can check all the essential items to be sure that I am using the term consistently and correctly.” We counter: “Are there any undefined, primitive terms in your language?” Being an honest person he admits, “Yes there are, since every language must have undefined primitives.” We add: “So you cannot then be sure that the meaning of these primitives does not drift?” He retorts, carefully, “While it is true that I cannot be sure that the definitions of my primitive terms do not drift, I am sure that my private language system is sound and does not drift because I am able to do things with it in the real world. Nature responds to my formulae. I am justified in saying that I have a genuine private language because it works.” Then we reach for the clincher: “And how are you assured that it works?” He proudly responds, thinking he has won the argument, “Because nature produces for me exactly what I want when I use my fomulae on it. Thus my private language constitutes a genuine private language, because no other human being knows it and I can use it to accomplish just what I desire to accomplish.”
For all of his intelligence and good will, our friend does not see two things. First, he does not see that his desires may be shifting, and that nature gives him what he desires because he has come to desire what nature gives him. He cannot produce any evidence except his own word that his desires have not changed. Second, if nature does respond to his formulae and give him desired results, that means that he and nature have a successful communication going. He communicates to nature what he desires, and nature communicates back, filling those desires. That is not a private language; it is only private relative to other human beings, but public in relation to himself and nature, the two together seen as a community. So there is no private language as yet.
Suppose our friend pulls out his last resort and says, “But I do have a private language with God. I have made up my own terminology and syntax, and I write and speak to God in that language which is completely unknown to any other human being.” We need only inquire: “And does God then speak back to you in that language, and using that language does he enable you to foreknow the future and to accomplish that which you could not do by your own power?”
If he says, “No. God never speaks to me.” He has a problem. He then thinks he has “a language,” but cannot assure himself or anyone else that he is using it consistently. Thus no private language, only private mumblings. If he says, “Yes. All of those things happen and more,” then he has given his case away again. For if he speaks to God and God speaks back to him through that process, he learns things he did not before, knows and does things he could not before do, then his language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is public to be himself and God. Only where there is a community that serves as a check and balance on our language can we know that what we are doing is using a language. Otherwise what we say or do is meaningless babble. Thus, there is no private language.
The following arguments are attempts to show that private language is impossible, as inspired by the Philosophical Investigations of Ludvig Wittgenstein.
Argument I.
1. All language in use tends to drift (change meaning), because:
a. People apply old language in new contexts, therefore definitions change.
b. Cultures meet and meld (change, accommodate) at their intersections.
c. Atypicality is deliberately employed.
(Each of the above is a sufficient condition for change. The categories are not cleanly discrete.)
2. Drift in language both enhances and limits its utility.
Drift enhances the utility of language in meeting new situations.
Drift limits ability to communicate with others: contemporaries, forebears, descendants.
3. One of the devices which thwarts drift in language is to make them rule-based, establishing standards of correct and incorrect usage.
4. A rule is a social norm, norms are socially defined. No one person can establish a social norm.
5. Therefore, language cannot be based on the actions and judgments of a single individual. (There can be no private language.)
Argument II.
1. Language is a rule-based system. The rules are social norms.
2. In a rule-based system, I either abide the rule or I do not.
3. Thinking that I abide the rule and abiding the rule are not the same thing. I do make mistakes.
4. Only the testimony of others can assure me that I actually am keeping a given rule when I think I am doing so. (This is one reason why we have judges, umpires, etc.)
5. If I think I am keeping a rule, and those around me say that I am not keeping that rule, there is no infallible internal evidence to which I can turn to prove either to myself of to others that I really did keep the rule. I must look for, find, and proffer external evidence (a photograph, circumstantial evidence, the testimony of additional persons, etc.) to assure that I kept the rule.
6. The search for external evidence to prove that I kept the rule is done to prove to others that I really did what I think I did. Therefore, others are the basis for being sure I abide the rule.
7. Therefore, there is no private language (no linguistic structure wherein I make up the rules, use the rules, judge that I use the rules, and have a right to be absolutely sure that all that is done correctly).
What is a self? A self has a body, feelings, thought processes, desires; but a self is probably not any one of these nor even the collection. Perhaps a self is a consciousness that is aware of its body, its feelings, thinking and desiring. This consciousness has the power of attention. It can focus on anything within the stream of mental events. It is an active choosing force that we call “the real me.”
A healthy self is one that is ready to meet any happening in the world with aplomb. It is never afraid (though it tries to be prudent), never angry (sometimes wary), never self-pitying (though sometimes hurting), never envious (but has real desires). In short, the healthy self never entertains negative emotions, even though tempted to do so.
The unhealthy self is afraid. It fears its body will be hurt or not nourished or rested. It fears its feelings will be wounded. It feels its thoughts to be inferior, and therefore is hesitant to be open. It fears its desires will not be fulfilled. It fears its actions will be rejected as wrong or insufficient.
The fear of the unhealthy self probably has root in rejection as a child. There was an experience of real hunger that was not met until fear of hunger had lodged deeply. There may have been unassuaged hurts that culminated in fearful anticipation of further wounds. There were situations of “put down” embarrassment which caused the self to wonder when such would happen again. There probably were unfulfilled desires which left the self wondering if this were perhaps a totally hostile universe.
These fear-engendering experiences of the self have given rise to a defense mechanism: self-love. The self essentially says: “No one else loves me, so I will undertake the cause of my own welfare. I will love and take good care of me, then I will have less to fear.” But that strategy has a problem: it doesn’t work. The love of self never satisfies the fears of the self. And the self feels, deep down, that self-love may be wrong, to boot.
When the self adopts the posture of self-love, it has embarked on a course of further destruction of the self, but now self-destruction. It becomes self feeding upon self. For the measure of true love is sacrifice. Whatever we give up of our own comfort and benefit to help another is the sacrifice that makes true love real. But when the “other” is one’s self, one tries to give up comfort and benefit to try to give oneself comfort and benefit. This self-love doesn’t work well because it is a diminishing of the person as one sacrifices something usually better to comfort oneself with something usually worse. The conscience of the person tells him this is a doubtful enterprise, and the person is further discomfited. Between the depletion of good, the depletion of resources and the bad feelings engendered, self-love turns into classic self-destruction.
Self -love leads to self-despising. Self-love, the pampering of oneself, is despised by others. We naturally tend to think less of ourselves when others around us despise us. The fact that this self-indulgence of self-love is insufficient to satisfy the needs of the self further lowers one’s self-respect. One’s conscience causes self-shame. The self-destructiveness of self-love is a final blow. Self-respect sinks to an intolerable low point.
It is difficult for anyone else to help wounded lover of self. Such an one cannot openly discuss the problem because the wounds are so deep and painful. Discussion usually exacerbates the hurt. Nor can the self-lover brook criticism, for that is taken as further despising heaped upon the deep self-despising, becoming more than one can bear.
The distraught self-loving, self-despising self has no comfort or peace. The supposed antidote has become a torment. The torment soul thrashes wildly, trying to find peace, comfort, security. Typical attempts at compensatory behavior are
Stimulation of the body: (I’ll drown my sorrows.)
Overeating Drugs
High speed thrills Sexual libertinism
Seeking to be scared Loud and/or erotic music Escape: (I’ll forget my sorrows.)
Television Books
Workaholic performance Professional student
Immersion in peer group Overzealous espousing of some cause
Hiding: (No one must know.) Lying
Hypocrisy Rejecting help
Reclusiveness Denigration: (I’m not worth anything.)
Constant apologies Masochism
Psychosomatic illness Carelessness
Suicide Aggression: (You rejected me, world.I’ll get back at you!)
Sports brutality Anger
Hatred Crime
War Insult
Criticism of others Spite
Strikes Terrorism
Compensation:
If I can’t have real love, I’ll take .
Money Power
Prestige Possessions
Fashion clothing Jewelry
Cosmetics Famous friends
Arrogance Spendthriftness (I’ll be the generous one.)
A person who is bound down with self-love is in the bondage of sin. As in quicksand, every struggle to add more self-love takes him deeper.
The only cure for self-love, or sin, is to be loved with a pure love. When a person finds that instead of the usual patronizing love of another self-lover he is confronted by a pure love which accepts him as he is. (He does not despise him), which will not collude in causing him to sin or in accepting his sinning, and which sacrifices to be a friend to him, he is at first overwhelmed. Then he doubts it and tries to proved that it is hypocritical or not real. When doubt and attempts at disproof have failed, the self-lover must make a fundamental choice. He must either admit that sin and self-love are not good and don’t work, which the contrast with a pure love has shown him, or his must reject the pure love as spurious. Thus the person must either reject his own self-love for a better love, or he must turn and fight against the pure love by lying about it. Which is to say the person must at that point either repent of his self-love or sink more deeply into it by rejecting and lying about the real and pure love.
The only real and pure love in this world is the pure love of Christ as embodied in the Savior himself or in his true and faithful servants. To encounter this love is also to encounter the Holy Spirit, which witnesses to the person of the purity of that love and of the opportunity and necessity of repentance. Only through the Holy Spirit can one repent and come to the righteousness of pure love, replacing the self-righteousness of self=love.
The person who has loved himself, therefore only loved himself, can learn through the Holy Spirit how to forget about his own welfare and seek only to help others as the Holy spirit directs. He then realizes that he of himself does not know enough to really help anyone else unless he is given guidance by the Holy Spirit. That Spirit teaches him that God knows all and has all power, and that Jesus Christ is the only fountain of righteousness in this world. Feeling that pure love of Christ, he may yield himself as a little child into the arms of the Savior, not needing to fear nor to feather his own nest any longer. Being relieved of those burdens, he is free to follow the Holy Spirit in ministering to the needs of others in the pure love. He becomes a child of Christ, ready to obey every instruction the Savior gives him, willing to suffer humbly whatever the Savior sees fit to inflict upon him, ready to make any sacrifice to love purely. He feels that pure love of the Savior for himself, the pure love that casts out all fear because it is so satisfying. He never hungers nor thirsts again, but ministers freely and humbly of that which the Savior has given him to help others not to be afraid.
Thus the person lost to self-love may be reborn through the waters of baptism and in the warm spiritual cleansing of fire and the Holy Ghost. No longer needing to love and defend himself, he now focuses a true and pure love on the Savior, loving the Master as he himself is loved. Guided by the Holy Spirit he feasts upon the words, feelings, ideas and actions of his new father, Jesus Christ. He yearns to be nearer to Him and spends his best moments in mighty prayer, striving to draw ever nearer to his father. Upon arising from prayer he views the world with the eye of faith: it is his apple, the endless opportunity to demonstrate to his neighbors the wonders of his new father’s love. Thus he loves others without a trace of self-concern or self-love. He speaks the truth in all humility, visits the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and keeps himself unspotted from the world.
Self-love has given way to pure love of God and of neighbor, the pure love of Christ for God and neighbor. This newness of life is not of this world. But the grateful possessor of this love is grateful to be in this world where he can reach out and comfort and share with others who are tormented by self-love.
1. Meaning is a function of people, not of things such as signs, signals and symbols.
2. People express themselves to “mean” through what they do and don’t do, often using signs, signals and symbols.
3. There are four parameters of meaning when someone communicates with another:
a. Purpose or intent, reflecting the desires of the heart. Known to self only, hypothesized by all other humans.
b. Assertion, the idea content of a message, reflecting the mind. Known to self, must be hypothesized by others. Also, contains the support or backup elaboration of meaning reflected in clarification, verification, understanding, evaluation and application content of the message.
c. Physical action of the person in signing, signaling or symbolizing the message. This is the strength aspect of a message. These are normally the sentences uttered.
d. Relevance of the message. The effect it has or will have, including what will happen next if the message is reacted to and reflected in the actions of the hearer(s) or not. This is the might aspect of the message.
4. Hypothesizing a person’s meaning (desire, assertion/support, and relevance) as attached to a signal structure (sentence), we may call “capture.” (Normal capture puts support in the place of the signal structure for convenience sake, but the original aspect of capture must be kept in mind, thus separating what a person “says” from what we hypothesized him to “mean.”)
5. A capture is analysis of a time-slice of a person. We can capture an eternal existence, a mortal lifetime, a career, a term of office, a year, a month, a day, a minute, or an instant.
6. A person who has integrity is easier to capture than one who doesn’t. For one who has integrity of heart, might, mind and strength, every capture is very much the same (same desires, typical message and support, typical relevance).
7. But:
a. Few persons are integrated.
b. Some persons who are integrated become disintegrated.
c. Some persons who are disintegrated become integrated.
d. Most people are simply guessing when they capture, anyway.
So unless one has a sure-fire method of knowing the truth about metaphysical matters, every capture must remain a hypothesizing, a guess.
8. Quality of capture improves as the following variables increase:
a. The integrity of the capturer.
b. The possession of an epistemology which delivers truth to the capturer.
c. The more truth the capturer already has in his or her mind about the universe.
d. The length of the time-slice of the person being captured being considered by the capturer.
e. The integrity of the person being captured.
Thus, the ultimate in capture is a god understanding God (seeing as we are seen, knowing as we are known).
Plato: There is a general ideal entity (the true) which is named. Materially instantiated particulars have their being in being like the general.
Aristotle: Recurring identities are noticed in the comparison of particulars, affirmed by the mind.
Locke: Selected identities (concepts) are built up out of comparison of empirical patterns.
Hume: Concepts are resemblances noticed in empirical observation.
Wittgenstein: There are ranges of overlapping family resemblances.
2. Existence is particularity. (There must be opposition (difference) for something to be separate, and thus to exist.
3. Language is universality. (Language always deals with patterns, with types. It is rule based.)
4. Particularity is initially and ultimately revealed in sensation.
5. Particularity as realized (revealed) in sensation is amorphous, irregular, anomalous. It can never be trusted or dealt with. It is an asymptote never grasped by human beings.
6. Universality is always realized (created) in the mind.
7. Universality is fictive convenience, at least as much bound by desire, the inside universe (mentality), as by the outside universe (supposed reality).
8. Universality and particularity are both universals and relate only to universals.
9. The mind considers and uses only universals.
10. All thinking is comparison of universals (pairing of patterns).
11. If two patterns are paired by a thinker, and that thinker chooses to emphasize their difference, one is called a particular vis-a-vis the other.
12. If two patterns are paired and the thinker chooses to emphasize their similarity, that similarity is called a universal.
13. But each pattern in the mind is already a universal. Where does the original universal come from? It is a hypothesis (guess) imposed upon phenomena by the thinker in self-defense, to simplify the unknowable welter of particularity in phenomena.
14. Knowledge consists of universals which are patterns used successfully in dealing with the universe. That success can be personal (heart, performative, satisfying), or mental (mind, coherence), or physical (strength, empirical), or enabling (might, pragmatic), or any combination of the above.
15. There are three main “enabling” realms:
a. Nature (technology)
b. Ideas (mathematics, logic, philosophy)
c. People (society, politics)
16. Particularity and universality are thus relational terms. Some universals when paired are seen as different, so one is called a particular. Some universals are seen to be alive, so they are united by the creation of a more general universal.
17. Thus is created a hierarchy of universals, culminating in The Universal. But The Universal has existence and significance only as a particular.
18. Language is of two types:
a. Ordinary: universality is family resemblance, which means that logic is not strictly usable. (Law of excluded middle does not hold.)
b. Technical: Universality is a common essence, which makes strict logical entailment possible, because the law of excluded middle does hold.
19. Law of Excluded Middle: Either A is true or not true. Logic can be used only when the terms are identical in each usage.
20. Questions:
a. Is ordinary language simply sloppy language?
b. Can “good” poetry be written in a technical language?
c. Can good thinking be done in ordinary language?
d. Can a person ever be saved if he knows only ordinary language?
1. “Mean” is an active verb. It signifies the intentional act of a person. It is appropriate to ask about any intentional act, “What do you mean (to do).” One of the mistakes of our civilization is to make “mean” a passive verb as regards both human action and “natural” events.
2. People “mean” through action, including language, to help others form correct associations of universals in the “others’” own minds.
3. False witness is knowingly or unknowingly to affirm a false association of universals or to negate a true association of universals.
4. Valid (honest, true) witness is affirming an association of universals or denying such an association on the basis of sufficient support.
5. People “mean” by using words, usually words in sentences. All meaning is pattern, type, shadow, paradigm. Example: The school is small. “The school” is a pattern: this thing which partakes of the pattern of being a collection of persons which includes those more learned and those less learned and where the more learned are assisting the less learned to learn more. “Small” means that the numbers of persons involved is fewer than one expects to find. “Is” means that one should add the two patterns into one to think of this school correctly.
6. Typical patterns of meaning:
a. Persons, places, things, concepts: Nouns
b. Partial patterns of persons, places, things, concepts: Adjectives
c. Actions or states: Verbs
d. Partial patterns of actions or states: Adverbs
e. Pointers to patterns: Articles, pronouns, demonstrative adjectives
f. Operators on patterns: Conjunctions
g. Affirmation of conjoined pattern: Verb “to be”
h. Prohibition of conjoined pattern: Negation
7. Sentence formation: All basic sentences are kernel sentences, having only one subject universal, one predicate universal, a copula affirming or denying the conjunction of the subject and predicate universals to form a new universal, plus the possibility of a pointer to the subject universal. Example: The school is small.
8. Complex sentences are simply grammatically felicitous concatenations of kernel sentences. Example: This aviation school has only one instructor. Constituent kernel sentences:
a. This school is aviational.
b. This aviation school is school-having-one-instructor.
c. This aviation school having one instructor is school-having-only-one-instructor.
9. Meaning of sentences: Permutations and combinations of the basic stock meanings in a person’s mind.
10. Metaphor: conjoining a universal with a target universal in a novel way, suggesting the result to be a more or less permanent description.
Dead metaphor: customary conjunction. Apt metaphor: combines reaction of surprise and appreciation of insight in receiver.
Example: He is a crab.
11. Simile: conjoining one standard universal to another in a more or less temporary arrangement. Example: He walks like a crab.
12. Class identification: Conjoining a given universal with a genus universal. Example: He is an Amerindian.
13. Personal identification: seldom possible with words; better done by photographs, paintings, fingerprint patterns, etc.
