My soap box
As this is the Intellectual Elite I think it is perfectly within our mandate to educate those which do not fall into this category. You may think this is slightly arrogant, but what did you expect from a group with the word elite in the name? So here is my short lecture on the difference between symbols and signs.
I first realized that not everyone understands the difference while browsing through wikipedia. As wikipedia is a collaborative effort (read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, wikipedia is clearly the latter) it is generally a decent sampling of the opinions prevalent in our culture. If you look under the discussion section for symbols you'll notice a lengthy debate on whether or not symbols and signs are synonyms. Obviously here is where I weigh in.
I was first explained the difference by Leslie A White (an anthropologist) in her work "Symbol: The Basic Element of Culture" (part of her '49 book The Science of Culture). At this point I'd like to apologize to clockwork for once again not being original, his thoughts on originality can be found here and here. White, clearly attributes symbols as being a purely Human trait. She goes on to say no "chimpanzee or lab rat can appreciate the difference between Holy water and distilled water, or grasp the meaning of Tuesday, 3, or sin." And to a varying degree this represents some of the arguments made in the recent debate on vegetarianism. Even Darwin tells us "That which distinguishes man from the lower animals is not the understanding of articulate sounds." So what is so special about symbols that make them a human product?
"A symbol may be defined as a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it." Obviously thing can refer to any sort of object, gesture, action, or physical form, but what does it all mean. To really understand that, we have to look at signs. I'm sure someone has read this and said, well you can teach a dog to sit. And that is true, but the command sit is not a symbol, it is a sign. Here in lies the crux of the problem. A symbol is given meaning by its user, a sign is a symbol who's meaning was given by some one else. A name, by example, is a sign. The gesture "thumbs up" is a symbol, and changes from country to country.
White also makes reference to Helen Keller. Sullivan describes Helen Keller as acting at first like an animal, and even after she teaches Helen her first word, Sullivan was disturbed by a lack of understanding. To Helen, these first words were signs not symbols. It is not until Sullivan is able to make the connection between the word water, and free flowing water, that Helen reports in her autobiography that she finally understands the mystery of language. The cross over from symbols to signs.
And there it is in a nut shell. White's work was done in the mid 40's and is fairly out of date on the subject of animals (so don't treat it as a first hand source on any animal intelligence debates), but none-the-less, it does pick up some of the fundamentals that make the difference between symbols and signs.
taken from: wikipedia, The Science of Culture by Leslie White, Seeing Ourselves by Macionis and Benokraitis and of course, The Intellectual Elite.
In other exciting news:
And stop by our forum and chat and debate with us. We're always looking for a new perspective.
this was originally published on the intellectual elite webring found at www.intellectualelite.com and was removed when the site crashed. I republished it here to preserve the statements made.
As this is the Intellectual Elite I think it is perfectly within our mandate to educate those which do not fall into this category. You may think this is slightly arrogant, but what did you expect from a group with the word elite in the name? So here is my short lecture on the difference between symbols and signs.
I first realized that not everyone understands the difference while browsing through wikipedia. As wikipedia is a collaborative effort (read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, wikipedia is clearly the latter) it is generally a decent sampling of the opinions prevalent in our culture. If you look under the discussion section for symbols you'll notice a lengthy debate on whether or not symbols and signs are synonyms. Obviously here is where I weigh in.
I was first explained the difference by Leslie A White (an anthropologist) in her work "Symbol: The Basic Element of Culture" (part of her '49 book The Science of Culture). At this point I'd like to apologize to clockwork for once again not being original, his thoughts on originality can be found here and here. White, clearly attributes symbols as being a purely Human trait. She goes on to say no "chimpanzee or lab rat can appreciate the difference between Holy water and distilled water, or grasp the meaning of Tuesday, 3, or sin." And to a varying degree this represents some of the arguments made in the recent debate on vegetarianism. Even Darwin tells us "That which distinguishes man from the lower animals is not the understanding of articulate sounds." So what is so special about symbols that make them a human product?
"A symbol may be defined as a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it." Obviously thing can refer to any sort of object, gesture, action, or physical form, but what does it all mean. To really understand that, we have to look at signs. I'm sure someone has read this and said, well you can teach a dog to sit. And that is true, but the command sit is not a symbol, it is a sign. Here in lies the crux of the problem. A symbol is given meaning by its user, a sign is a symbol who's meaning was given by some one else. A name, by example, is a sign. The gesture "thumbs up" is a symbol, and changes from country to country.
White also makes reference to Helen Keller. Sullivan describes Helen Keller as acting at first like an animal, and even after she teaches Helen her first word, Sullivan was disturbed by a lack of understanding. To Helen, these first words were signs not symbols. It is not until Sullivan is able to make the connection between the word water, and free flowing water, that Helen reports in her autobiography that she finally understands the mystery of language. The cross over from symbols to signs.
And there it is in a nut shell. White's work was done in the mid 40's and is fairly out of date on the subject of animals (so don't treat it as a first hand source on any animal intelligence debates), but none-the-less, it does pick up some of the fundamentals that make the difference between symbols and signs.
taken from: wikipedia, The Science of Culture by Leslie White, Seeing Ourselves by Macionis and Benokraitis and of course, The Intellectual Elite.
In other exciting news:
- Adkenar watches economics in video games and the ability for people to debate. Please prove him wrong on the latter.
- Dem0critus deals with infinity.
- Dr. Dolphin thinks Intelligent Design is full of crap.
- Jessica Rabbit quotes one of my favorite poems. Apparently we aren't the only ones who like it either.
- Philosopical Rambler has a number of really good piece on constitutional law and abortion. Give his last five or so posts a good read over, they're worth it.
- Soup4Brains laments both public school and home schooling.
And stop by our forum and chat and debate with us. We're always looking for a new perspective.
this was originally published on the intellectual elite webring found at www.intellectualelite.com and was removed when the site crashed. I republished it here to preserve the statements made.
posted by jim at 10/13/2005 10:38:00 AM
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