"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty says in a scornful
tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor
less." "The question is," says Alice, "whether you can make
words mean so many different things." Reading the dialogue from
Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, with the magnificent
works of great philosophers (from Plato to Leibniz, Kant, and
Hegel, Peirce and many more) in mind, one understands Alice's
trouble. With the exception of Wittgenstein, nobody really seems
to have been bothered by the ability people have to make words
mean many things.
Today, we could be directed to a philosophical paraphrase in
which, instead of a fixed point, the need for a sign system (a
language) is spelled out. Adapted to the scope of the conceived
practical experience, such a sign system, when put into
practice, will change the world, will "move" it. Diagrammatic
thinking, the powerful cognitive model Peirce advanced,
exemplifies the idea. Cybernetics, biogenetics, computers, and
research in artificial intelligence and artificial life, as well
as political, social, aesthetic, or religious concepts are
examples of domains where such sign systems have been devised.
They have facilitated forms of human self-constitution that
contribute to the contradictory image of today's world. Such
languages reflect the fundamental process of progressive
mediation, participate in the diversification of the languages
used, and affect the status and value system of the ideal of
literacy.
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