Against Crowding out the Meaning of Meaning

BORN, Rainer and Eva GATARIK. Against Crowding out the Meaning of Meaning. In Shulamith Kreitler & Tomáš Urbánek. Conceptions of Meaning. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2014, p. 89-112. ISBN 978-1-63321-241-1.

Basic information

• Original name: Against Crowding out the Meaning of Meaning
• Authors: BORN, Rainer (40 Austria) and Eva GATARIK (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: New York, Conceptions of Meaning, p. 89-112, 24 pp. 2014.
• Publisher: Nova Science Publishers

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Chapter(s) of a specialized book
• Field of Study: 50600 5.6 Political science
• Country of publisher: United States of America
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Publication form: printed version "print"
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14560/14:00076261
• Organization unit: Faculty of Economics and Administration
• ISBN: 978-1-63321-241-1
• Keywords in English: meaning of meaning; relation between language-information-reality; corrective reflection; reflective transcendence; epistemic resolution level; Enlightenment; Scissors of Knowledge
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

The chapter analyses problems and constructs solutions concerning the evaluation and application of meaning in different kinds of representational systems. One central problem is the replacement of “meaning” by rules of calculations that can often provide only formally incomplete sets of solutions which are correct only syntactically. This may be due to a loss of understanding and of a misevaluation of the computational technologies of, for example, information processing. To overcome these problems we offer and provide a multi-dimensional action-guiding kind of semantics in abstractly studying the general relation between language, information/knowledge and reality, with meaning as the essential mediator between them. Technically speaking, it rests upon a generalized Tarski- and Situation-Semantics, taking into account the limits of any plainly truth-functional semantics. Our approach opens up a broader space of possible problem solutions as well as the necessity of tolerant dialogue to correct misunderstandings and misapplications of superficially meaningful problem-solutions. It does not rest upon a fixed, incorrigible universal common sense, i.e., it takes into account the importance of cooperation in the developments of evolution. Blind evolution freezes in real creativity and restricts innovation to the given epistemic resolution level of what we already know. Creating meaning was essential in the times of the Enlightenment but it is not enough just to translate and try to communicate meaning. It is also necessary to foster the endeavor to strive for knowledge and meaning going beyond of what we know, rather than just for information which is used and applied in the context of what we already know.