Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GE Morton]

Please show me any single word that can denote without connoting. ANY one.

I didn't say words can denote without connoting. All words have connotations as well as denotative meanings. I said the line between them (for most words) is clear and sharp. Whatever connotations the barrista might associate with "coffee," they don't prevent her from handing me a cup when I order one.

All words and their meanings are artefactual.

Of course they are. Language is a human artifact.

Many make the mistake of thinking words are the true representative of Platonic forms.

Egads.

[GE Morton]

You're not capable of understanding what I wrote.

Could be. It would help if what you wrote was coherent.

[Sculptor1]

Please show me any single word that can denote without connoting. ANY one.

I didn't say words can denote without connoting. All words have connotations as well as denotative meanings. I said the line between them (for most words) is clear and sharp. Whatever connotations the barrista might associate with "coffee," they don't prevent her from handing me a cup when I order one.

ANyone can hand you a coffee. and you simply cannot use barrista without connoting a person's experience of barristas. indivisible.

All words and their meanings are artefactual.

Of course they are. Language is a human artifact.

Many make the mistake of thinking words are the true representative of Platonic forms.

Egads.

[Terrapin Station]

You're not capable of understanding what I wrote.

Could be. It would help if what you wrote was coherent.

If there are parts you didn't understand, the prudent thing would be to ask for clarification rather than just arguing against it anyway.

[GE Morton]

ANyone can hand you a coffee. and you simply cannot use barrista without connoting a person's experience of barristas. indivisible.

You seem to have missed the previous point. All words have connotations. But they don't determine what the barrista will hand me when I order a cup of coffee. The denotation does. "Coffee" may have different connotations to another waitress somewhere else. But she'll still bring me a cup of coffee.

[Sculptor1]

ANyone can hand you a coffee. and you simply cannot use barrista without connoting a person's experience of barristas. indivisible.

You seem to have missed the previous point. All words have connotations. But they don't determine what the barrista will hand me when I order a cup of coffee.

Not even that. The last barrista I met handed me a cup of tea.

The denotation does. "Coffee" may have different connotations to another waitress somewhere else. But she'll still bring me a cup of coffee.

Of tea. or a cool glass of water.
In the US she connotes servility; in the UK, mild distain.In france grumpyness.

[GE Morton]

You seem to have missed the previous point. All words have connotations. But they don't determine what the barrista will hand me when I order a cup of coffee.

Not even that. The last barrista I met handed me a cup of tea.

When you ordered coffee? I hope they fired her.

[Belindi]

Not even that. The last barrista I met handed me a cup of tea.

When you ordered coffee? I hope they fired her.

Are you serious GEM ? Would you fire somebody for one harmless human error?

[Sculptor1]

Not even that. The last barrista I met handed me a cup of tea.

When you ordered coffee? I hope they fired her.

For some reason barrista connotes a female in your mind.

[GE Morton]

When you ordered coffee? I hope they fired her.

Are you serious GEM ? Would you fire somebody for one harmless human error?

Heh. No. The presumption was that she made those errors constantly (which she would do if she attached a meaning to "coffee" different from that of her customers).

[GE Morton]

When you ordered coffee? I hope they fired her.

For some reason barrista connotes a female in your mind.

Yep. So? What has that do to with the issue?

[Sculptor1]

For some reason barrista connotes a female in your mind.

Yep. So? What has that do to with the issue?

Because a word is inspearable from its connotations.

[GE Morton]

Yep. So? What has that do to with the issue?

Because a word is inspearable from its connotations.

The connotations a word may have in any particular mind may not be separable from it in that mind, but those are quite separable from its denotative meaning. The barista will still deliver the cup of coffee ordered regardless of whatever connotations she may attach to "coffee."

[Belindi]

Are you serious GEM ? Would you fire somebody for one harmless human error?

Heh. No. The presumption was that she made those errors constantly (which she would do if she attached a meaning to "coffee" different from that of her customers).

It's a simple fact of a good trainer that they don't presume the trainee knows the local culture. In other words, people can and do learn from experience. Learning from experience includes the learning to substitute one culture for another.

Coffee and tea are not sentient. We can't empathise with coffee or tea, and never will. Sentience is a biological fact as we know state of the art biology. So sentience is where the cultural relativity buck stops.

[GE Morton]

It's a simple fact of a good trainer that they don't presume the trainee knows the local culture. In other words, people can and do learn from experience. Learning from experience includes the learning to substitute one culture for another.

Coffee and tea are not sentient. We can't empathise with coffee or tea, and never will. Sentience is a biological fact as we know state of the art biology. So sentience is where the cultural relativity buck stops.

???

I'm not sure what all that has to do with the issue under discussion, i.e., whether the denotative meanings of words are distinct from their (subjective) connotations.