Friday, February 28, 2014

Successful Communication

As has been previously proposed, 'Philosophy of Language', can be defined as 'the study of successful Communication', a reflection of Leibniz' original inspiration for his Logicism, sight of which has seemingly gotten lost in the past century.  So, based on what has been examined here thus far, a provisional definition of 'successful Communication' can be: 'a correspondence, on the occasion of an Utterance, between the Intention of its speaker, and the Enactment of the addressee'.  Now, because of the radical alterity between speaker and addressee, that 'correspondence' cannot be reduced to Identity, a lack of specificity that is a virtue, not a vice, since it accurately represents the conditions under consideration.  Furthermore, the correspondence cannot be immediately and directly verified, but can only be inferred from a combination of the speaker's satisfaction, and the addressee's subsequent demonstrations of competence in later performances.  Now, because of its irreducible contingency and uncertainty, this model of 'Language' might not appeal to someone who demands simplicity and necessity in their formulations, but they, nevertheless, might recognize its applicability to a familiar scenario--in a classroom, in their own attempts to confirm that they have successfully communicated their version of 'Philosophy of Language' to a student, e. g. via a test.

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