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  • From: Gabe Eisenstein <gabe AT cascadeaccess.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Uncancellable meaning and conceptual unity
  • Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:16:13 -0700

Two cents' worth from a philosopher:

"Uncancellable meaning" is another name for the old philosophical idea of conceptual unity. Plato said conceptual unities exist in nature. Aristotle said they correspond to the essences of things, and to definitions. Kant said they derive from the logically necessary structure of perception and reason. But experience showed that natural language ("natural" as opposed to the artificial constructions of logicians) continually violates the supposed conceptual unity designated by a word. Wittgenstein greatly clarified the point for 20th century philosophers with his example of "family resemblance", where all the members of a family share properties with some other members, but there is no property shared by all members. (He also used the example of games, which can't be defined by any essential property such as winning and losing; and on this basis went on to talk about "language games" as the primary linguistic realities, rather than unified entities called "languages", each with a single system of meanings and concepts.) The same phenomenon has also been described as the "dissemination" of meaning, through changes not held in check by any conceptual unity.

I believe that these considerations are applicable in general, and that it would be pointless to ask whether some particular language such as Biblical Hebrew does or does not express the unity of concepts. The fact that you can come up with definitions or conceptual properties that you think are necessary for the "proper" or "standard" usage of this or that word proves nothing. Meanings and usages change, and whatever boundaries you draw will be erased.
The changeability of language also tells against the alleged lexical-grammatical-stylistic unity of a language called Biblical Hebrew spoken from 1400 to 400 BC. Belief in such an incomparable phenomenon is a religious belief.


Gabe Eisenstein




  • [b-hebrew] Uncancellable meaning and conceptual unity, Gabe Eisenstein, 06/26/2009

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