1.
The idea that there is a division
of linguistic labor is an interesting concept that I agree with. Certainly,
there are folks who create or add to meaning and folks who abide by said
meaning, (although, the lowly masses do hold power on whether the meaning of a
word picks up steam or not).
2-3.
I disagree with Putnam’s assertion
that the meaning of water did not change for the average speaker in the interval
of from 1750 to present day. It seems to me that language, as constructed, is a
man-made artificial attempt to classify or categorize the world based on our
subjective knowledge.
For example, I took an ichthyology,
the study of fishes, class two quarters ago in which the professor told us that
all known species of mammals can be classified as fishes; under this view I
believe it improper to say, ‘well our notion of fishes has not change, only our
mistaken belief of what belongs or does not belong to the class of fishes’, for
certainly, we could have easily come up with a system of biological classification
in which whales are still not considered fish and tuna are, but instead we
created a somewhat arbitrary system in which whales and tuna are both fish, at
least according to said professor. Therefore, meaning can be said to almost
wholly consist of (might be a stretch, but shoot for the stars, right?) our subjective classification of the world independent of actual
experience, for we could have easily decided that the meaning of water is not
its molecular structure, but its ability to serve a set of purposes, i.e., sustaining
life, growing crops, spoiling parades etc.
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