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Article 1417 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: paulh@cs.uq.oz.au (Paul Henman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Is semiotics an "informal logic"?
Message-ID: <5229@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>
Date: 19 Nov 91 22:21:12 GMT
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In <1991Nov11.024611.12312@nuscc.nus.sg> john@mango.iss.nus.sg (John Waterworth) writes:

>The code-decode and, hence,
>the semiotic model depend on the idea of shared knowledge, usually
>called mutual knowledge. But in reality, there is little, sometimes no,
>mutual knowledge. Communication is risky and error-prone, often largely
>erroneous.

Careful does it!  You're falling into one pole of the individual vs
society as primary debate.

It is hardly fair to say that there is "little, sometimes no, mutual
knowledge".  You're communicating in English which myself and all the
others presumably comprehend (if not "precisely", which is your
criticism, whatever "precise" communication is?).  The whole society
knows to stop at a red traffic sign, and understand the meaning of
the symbols (1,2,3, ...) of the decimal counting system - all signs
of society.  We are in fact immersed in mutual knowledge of society,
but we shouldn't overstate that, because we all have individual knowledge,
including individual representations of the mutual knowledge, which may
be difficult to communicate precisely.

One of the difficulties seems to lie in your comment that communication
is "often largely erroneous".  Erroneous with respect to what? - Truth?
You seem to take a Platonic view of reality where communication is either
Right or Wrong.  One important criticisms of semiotics and post-modern
thought is that it is incoherent to speak of Right and Wrong communication
as implied here.  But they also fall into the trap that some communication
seems "more right" than others.  We constantly need to be tight rope
walking between two theoretically pure concepts, which individually
critique the other, but are not themselves sufficient for our life
experiences, but together they hold a tension which, at times is
theoretically straining.

Hope these thoughts are helpful. :-)

Paul Henman


