On Symbolic Ambiguity

By Dennis J. Darland

November 2, 2007

I said elsewhere (http://dennisdarland.com/philosophy/naming.html) that any of a written, printed, spoken, or thought word could count as in the symbol-r relations. Most of the time, it is true that the distinction between these may be overlooked. But the distinction can sometimes matter. For example two people could see the same printed word ‘Tully’. The printed word would in each case possibly be related to a psychological event having a symbol0-r relation to a person (maybe or maybe not the same person) Tully. The two people might have practices of relating this printed word to the same or different people. Also there are multiple series of physical events from the printed word to each persons eyes, and then into their nervous systems. The practice they have of using he word will depend upon the prior history of the people (especially their nervous systems). When the prior histories of the people are similar enough to say that the word stands for the same object for the two people, then the distinction between the written, printed, spoken, or thought word does not (at least almost always) matter. The usual agreement between the public ‘word’ objects and the practices of using them for different people is what makes language public. Occasional divergences in the practices of using them is what can make for misunderstandings.

Whenever there is a symbol-r relation of a public word to a object, there will be psychological events for each person using that public word. It is pretty much impossible to compare these psychological events, so ,even though it is the psychological event is each person that means the object for that person, it is generally impossible to directly talk about these psychological events. That is why we almost always talk about words instead.

The ambiguity I am talking about here is a ambiguity of symbols for symbols – a special case of ambiguity of symbols. I think this special case is easy to overlook, and almost always has been. I think that many of Wittgenstein’s objections to ‘mental’ objects, especially ‘mental meanings’ are based on it. Instead of rejecting ‘mental meanings’, we must recognize and account for these ambiguities. Wittgenstein often objects that particular mental objects (experiences of being guided) often taken as meaning are not essential to meaning (e.g. Philosophical Investigations, section 173), but it may be that some mental object is needed for each person, although it may vary, and even for the same person at the same time there may be ambiguity.