[Serious Phil] Children and Family Resemblance

[Sean Wilson]

... I'm saying that we would need to know more of what you have in mind for "misuse." It would be like saying of something for which no market existed, that the product was a "misuse." I would rather speak of it for what it is: a sense of "dog" that cannot trade anywhere but with his parents. It can easily be called a "misuse" if the boy doesn't intend wink-wink talk with one in close quarters. One might simply say it is a poor play in that language game.    

It wouldn't be a "misuse" if it worked, lest that idea become something prejudicial or technical. An English teacher, e.g., might call certain things a "misuse" for reasons local to her needs (socially regimenting certain behaviors). Perhaps she won't want the boy, as a teenager, to use slang ("hey dog!"). But this is neither here nor there. For this doesn't dispute that slang is communicative -- that it works -- it merely objects in the way similar that others do for want of fashion. (Not wont, Walter). And so, if misuse means, simply, some propriety code, this sense of the idea isn't germane to our discussions -- to the point being made.       

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=596860
Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html


________________________________
From: Peter D <Philscimind at undergroundwiki.org>
To: philscimind at undergroundwiki.org 
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Serious Phil] Children and Family Resemblance





--- In Phil-Sci-Mind at yahoogroups.com, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505 at ...> wrote:
>
> (Responding to a point offered by Larry Tapper below)
> 
> If a child learns the word "dog" by seeing a furry animal on all fours, with the father pointing and saying "dog," and then the child later points to a cow and says "dog," there is no issue here. This is because the child hasn't learnt "dog" yet. The process of learning it is still going on. You only know a word when you can exchange it successfully in the language marketplace. The child is trying to play the word "dog" with the sense of "beast," which doesn't trade for value in our games. At least not currently. You can't redeem it. 

That skirts around the "what is misuse" question without quite
answering it. Are you hinting that misuse is such because it doesn't get the required result?

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