Are words material things?

They are material because they exist in the physical world, the abstract part you
re obsessed with is what is triggered by the words material existance. It's important to remember that at a basic level reading is a VISUAL experience you have to SEE it, the letters are physically imprinted and constitute a different experience from listening, which again is a sonic existence, still material.

Your professor is full of shit and pushing his baseless ideology on students. Welcome to academia.

>>Words aren't fucking concrete
>>They literally are sometimes

writing is material
speech is made of sonic waves, which also are material
however, writing and words aren't the same, neither are speech and words

I've never had a single professor who would directly give their beliefs on something like this.
They normally just paraphrase the philosophers being studied on the course.
I had a philosophy of God class which was all about the god debate and the lecturer completely evaded giving his own beliefs, he just offered and analysed various arguments.
Am I just lucky? Is it common for lecturers to be so dogmatic?

>Am I retarded
Yes.

If you believe that perception is reality, and that we depict it by by our thoughts, and spoken words between individuals, then the world is language, living information. Look at the beginning of the gospel of John - the word is at the beginning, and it's made flesh, material.

>>Words aren't fucking concrete!

"Concrete"

/thread

That I am able to perceive what is real does not mean my "perception is reality."

wew nice merely verbal dispute
>OP: words are word-forms, not word-instances!
>Prof: words are word-instances, not word-forms!

also nice Platonism OP, get a grip

Isn't this kind of how magic works, or supposedly works? That words become concrete and have power, or influence, over the things they represent?

It's a subjective reality. Your perception is entirely your own. It is shared with others to varying degrees.

the material carriers of language aren't language itself
if you or someone itt are able to convince me otherwise I'll literally drop out of college next monday and provide timestamped proof. I'll become a janitor or whatever it is that stupid people are supposed to do

It's not any kind of "reality," my perception remains perception, in this context, it would be perceiving "real" i.e. factual things.

What is factual is a matter of perception, then interpretation. The process of interpretation is done by words and thoughts in the mind, and then spoken words between individuals, or written. The meaning is conveyed by language (the manifest must be interpreted somehow). Thereby words take on flesh and material life, and the world is information, language.

The description of a sandwich's taste and the accompanying sensation of fullness is not a substitute for the experience of them.

>he thinks the thing-in-itself and your perception of it are the same
get a load of this guy

I have maintained that perception is how we interpret reality. But that perception is subjective, different to every individual.

Consider Heraclitus, fragment 54. The unseen harmony is better than the visible. Also fragment 123, nature is in the habit of hiding itself.

We must reach the reality of things and appearances by interpreting it. Words are the tools we have to do this. They are imperfect tools however, and so the meaning of things is conveyed in a flawed way (the taste of a sandwich, as you say, cannot be truly conveyed to another.)

It's not a matter of the tool being "imperfect," it's a matter of using the wrong tool. Even if there were such a thing as a "perfect description" of satiety it wouldn't fill my belly.

Well, the world is flawed anyway. Stop demanding perfect sense because it only exists in a Platonic ideal. Words are the best (albeit flawed) tool we have for depicting, navigating, and dealing with reality.

Ass

I'm not demanding perfect sense. I'm saying that, if I were hungry, and you offered me the choice between the "perfect description" of a ham sandwich and a ham sandwich, I would take physical thing over the representation of it without question.

You wouldn't recognise it was a ham sandwich unless you were told, by language, what it was.

I could call it a pile of bricks, I would still be able to eat it for nourishment. I would still taste the ham, bread, etc., except I would call these different things.

Considering how fuzzy the concept of 'word' is in linguistics, I'm not sure 'words' actually exist as distinct objects outside our analyses. It would be more fruitful to consider the status of utterances rather than words.

Without language you would be breaking your teeth on rocks or poison yourself. You would have no concept of a food and its qualities. Without a shared language, a ham sandwich would not exist in your subjective reality

>Without language you would be breaking your teeth on rocks or poison yourself
Maybe if I were a literal sub 20 IQ idiot. I hope you realize that language had to be invented.

My point is that without language and communicated meaning, everything is unfamiliar and alien to us.

I guess one interpretation could be this: words only exist in collective consciousness. If you subscribe to materialistic monism then the 'mind' is actually made out of material things and supervenes on the material. So if words exist only in something material, and only material things than exist, then they must be material.

>language had to be invented

Oh, really? Wow, looks like we have a genius in our midst. Would you please post the groundbreaking paper you wrote on the origin of language that solved the centuries-long debate?

This debate is arising from a misunderstanding of the nature of communication and meaning. You have all failed to ask what a "word" is before arguing about it.

Communication relates material symbols to abstract meanings. This relationship constitutes a single entity which exists between the material and abstract: the sign.

So, of course 'words' in one sense require transmission through a physical medium. This is trivial. What grants the physical medium its relevance and usefulness is the abstract meaning to which it refers. Thus, the 'word' in a linguistic sense exists in a quasi-abstract structure, which is called la langue.

'Words' are not solely material, because they do not exist merely in tangible reality; however they are also not solely abstract, because the field of unarticulated meaning cannot communicate without symbolic reference. Words are that symbolic reference. They are in-between: semiological.

t. the only person in this thread who actually fucking studies linguistics

ass

Thank you

words are just a representation of thought. Is thought material ? The brain is but its contents don't seem to be. Although they can manifest in material things or actions.

I agree with you, but nothing you've said changes the fact that a bird is not the description of a bird. Quibbling over what the word "word" means doesn't really clear up that ontological misunderstanding.

pinker is a fraud, chris ryan told me so, the noble savage is not a meme, everything was better

i don't see how this is relevant

Hey, smart ass, I've also studied linguistics. Your patronising post didn't adress the initial question at all; the ontological status of words remains unclear

i really have no opinion on pinker whatsoever but man he has an exquisitely punchable face

he's jewish

Words are the basis of language, which we use to convey information. If everyone were to think words were "abstract" and "fluid" then how would new readers learn language?

This whole argument is a fallacy of bookworms. Many people won't even understand what you mean when you say that, let alone what you say at all. OP's professor was right, your mind might twist the word's context but you only have to look in a dictionary to determine their meaning.

>OP's professor was right
Then show us an instance of material words

>>>>you only have to look in a dictionary to determine their meaning

Show me a word that isn't material

wut abt b4 dictionary tho

>you only have to look in a dictionary to determine their meaning
What's your point? Writing, ie. ink on some material, isn't an instance of words. Words are the abstract portion of the signs

Wow nice point I guess people couldn't define words before someone invented the first dictionary
just because it's not unique makes it open to interpretation?

I understand what you're saying, but regardless of whether you have a specific meaning for a certain word doesn't change the actual MEANING of the word in a book. some words are similar and can be taken as the same, but in the end words need a basis of meaning.

take the word "apple". To some people it could mean fresh apple trees waiting to be cut, and to others it could mean there are apple-eating worms nearby, but in the end an apple is a hand-sized red fruit.

Your own account of what your professor said is not very good, do you realize that? It is very limited which goes to show maybe you should have insisted him to explain it again, so you could understand it better, even if, of course, to disagree even more with what was being said.

Anyways, neither of you seem to have indulged in being sure you were defining "word" in the same way. That's bound to be a very unprofitable language game. already gave a nice enough description, so just try to be sure you can convey the point of people you disagree with next time.

You seem to be missing the point of this argument.

I agree that the OP isn't a decent enough account, but

>9475649 already gave a nice enough description
He didn't address the OP at all. Calling words quasi-abstract (a philosophically dubious concept at best) is an obvious cop-out. The ontological status of words remain unclear

Your point is that words can have different meanings. But I'm saying that, because words are defined as having only one meaning, they have only one meaning.

stoopid

>Your point is that words can have different meanings
It isn't

>words are defined as having only one meaning
they aren't

This explains it pretty nicely
youtube.com/watch?v=kBW0QrINQyg

you're talking about words meaning different things and using the word "sign" a lot to try and define those feels your feeling when you can't fine the actual word you want to use.

Words are written form of speech. Of course they're material you idiot.

That's writing/graphemes, smaller unit of a writing system. Words are something else

Are you retarded? Morphemes, the smallest unit of written speech is still symbolic and therefore material. And if words are made up of morphemes, then words are definitely also material. Look at logographic writing systems, you think their "words" aren't material? Are you 12?

How about actually studying linguistics instead of pretending to understand it online?

>not an argument

scritters: /bait agave are yould sturients.

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False. You would recognize it for what it was, but wouldn't be able to assign a name to it.

okay,

>Morphemes, the smallest unit of written speech
Graphemes* (not morphemes) are the smallest unit of writing* (not written speech), and they're formal, not material

>And if words are made up of morphemes, then words are definitely also material
Invalidated by my previous statement

>Look at logographic writing systems, you think their "words" aren't material?
Logograms *represent* words, they're not words themselves. Did you ever actually study linguistics or did you just skim through some wikipedia articles before composing this sentence?

>Are you 12?
No, are you?

*farts respectfully towards you*

The only polisci professor I ever had would avoid giving his beliefs but my econ professors always gave their positions. I guess it's just a matter of luck like you said

>I spout out what I learn at the university so I am right

liberals everyone

Literally how is he wrong? He got everything right.

Words are like the symbols in mathmatics, completely arbitrary but what they represent is real.

yep

I don't understand this thread

get out of Veeky Forums

It absolutely does address the ontological category of words:

"Words' are not solely material, because they do not exist merely in tangible reality; however they are also not solely abstract, because the field of unarticulated meaning cannot communicate without symbolic reference. Words are that symbolic reference. They are in-between: semiological."

Since you study linguistics I would expect you to understand this, assuming of course that you actually read Saussure.
>inb4 "Saussure is irrelevant"
His basic concepts are still the bedrock of linguistic theory

>i never went to uni so i bash it as an indoctrination factory

/pol/ everyone

There's no in-between. What's happening here is the conflation of several distinct units - some abstract, some concrete - into a single being; you (him?) are failing to delimit what exactly is a word

>there's no in-between
There is an in-between, constituted by the **relationship** between the two. That is the point of structuralism.

>failing to delimit what exactly is a word
If you mean this in a morphological way, then yes I haven't defined a word in that sense. But the point is that I don't need to in order to talk about them as symbolic signifiers.

>There is an in-between, constituted by the **relationship** between the two
You mean signs, not words, and every ontological analysis of a sign that disregards its components (signifier and signified) is nonsensical at best.

>If you mean this in a morphological way, then yes I haven't defined a word in that sense.
I mean words as a concept. They're not the same as sign, speech acts, writing, and so on. There seems to be extreme confusion regarding the exact definition of word, writing, speech, and many other concepts present in this discussion

At this point I'm not sure what you mean.

In what way are you talking about "words" if not in the context of signs, speech acts, or writing?

Regarding your first greentext, the point of the notion of the sign is that it only exists by virtue of the relation between the signifier and the signified, therefore when we talk about signs we are necessarily talking about both of its subparts. I'll copy and paste my original explanation of this point once again:

"Words' are not solely material, because they do not exist merely in tangible reality; however they are also not solely abstract, because the field of unarticulated meaning cannot communicate without symbolic reference. Words are that symbolic reference. They are in-between: semiological."

This is the only notion of "word" which comports with the only interpretation I can make of your phrase "words as a concept".

ass

what are animals?

Isn't this going to run into the same issues of dualism's material/immaterial interaction?

underrated post

You keep repeating that, it won't make it less unfeasible of a definition. Words can't be "in-between" because there's no in-between; things are either abstract or concrete. Read some Quine.
Either we're failing to pinpoint what exactly is a word or they aren't things at all.

>Words can't be "in-between" because there's no in-between
it is the **relation** between abstract and concrete, not an object between them. words are that relation.

>read some Quine
I've dipped into Word and Object...but honestly i'm bored of this debate. no hard feelings it was fun

>the abstract meaning to which it refers
you shoehorned in the word abstract here
there is nothing abstract about meaning.
Meaning is attributed via a network of relationships that are made up of physical connections in the brain.

>words are not solely material, because they do not exist merely in tangible reality
everything is material.

If we're talking about what the English word "word" means, then it has many overlapping meanings and no set technical definition. It is sometimes used to refer to concrete things, i.e. inscriptions or bits of utterances. It is sometimes used to refer to abstract things, i.e. stable pieces of a language's inventory as such, independent of any particular use of them.

If we're talking about the theoretical notion of a word, then the answer is theory-internal, or at least theory-dependent. It depends on the framework, or more normatively might depend on what we need our framework to accomplish. In practice, the vast majority of linguistics treats a word, as a theoretical construct, as something abstract, in the sense that it's distinct from any particular employment of the word in a physical medium. Likewise a distinction is usually drawn between utterances (concrete events) and sentences (abstract syntactic forms belonging to the language in virtue of its grammatical underpinnings, even if no one actually happens to utter them, ever). Every natural language contains an infinite number of sentences in this sense, although the number of them ever actually produced in an utterance will necessarily be finite.

...and why is this important again?
philosophy is such a waste of time lmao

IMMATERIAL """"THINGS"""" DON'T EXIST
ANYTHING THAT IS, IS MATERIAL

THE ONLY """"THING"""" THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SAID TO BE IMMATERIAL IS NOTHING, AND THAT DEPENDS ON WHETHER OR NOT YOU INCLUDE "NOTHING" IN THE SET OF ALL THINGS - WHICH IS AN AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

where's your tripcode, Rei?

Isn't "nothing" just the linguistic equivalent of zero, i.e. a valueless placeholder?

Ass

>linguistics treats a word, as a theoretical construct, as something abstract, in the sense that it's distinct from any particular employment of the word in a physical medium
Guess what I'm doing in the post you quoted.

Regarding your first paragraph, that is irrelevant if we only want to talk about a word as a signifier.