Locke'd In

This assignment has two parts. the first is a basic blog post and the second is a live forum thread. I'll warn people straight up that the forum thread has over-the-top comments and some rhetoric that qualifies as mean-spirited if not outright hate-filled. However, the thread swims with rhetoric and the use of language, both as symbol and as power.

In many ways, how the arguments function reflects Locke's concerns of words and a need for almost scientific definition of the meaning of symbols. If we cannot agree on meaning, we cannot assign a means to judge arguments or ideas. Locke knew that our view of the real world could only extend so far as we perceived that world. Thus how we perceived the world matter to our evaluation of that world. Words express this perception, and we must agree on the concepts of meaning behind those worlds for any discussion to hold an element of joint merit. As Locke, note the more complex the concept named, the more doubtful the meaning of a concept becomes when shared.

In other words, if you and I argue over the sun, but I see the sun as a hole seared through the heavens by the might of a god(s), and you see it as a raging mass of combustible atoms, then when we argue over the nature of the sun, we must have some symbol/word/criterion that allows us to judge these disparate concepts. Our use of the same word for two incompatible views must rely upon other shared words to communicate. If we cannot share other words to discuss the symbol in contention than we are speaking two different languages, every bit as if one spoke only Gaelic and the other Mandarin.

Something akin to this happens below (the link intentionally starts in the middle of the thread) :

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20250&st=60

In addition, it's also interesting to attempt to compare Campbell's method of communication to this type of forum to evaluate who or what is the speaker/audience/subject/end. One also wonders how Mary Astell's ethos would have affected the direction of the thread. Particularly given her extraordinary gift for subsuming symbols of linguistic power to her own means.

Feel free to comment below. Or in the thread if you're brave.