Re: intersubjectivity

Gary F. Blanchard (garyb@pics.com)
Sat, 19 Apr 1997 16:29:39 -0700


Dear Tim-

Thanks for the comments on cats and construing. I would like to pursue
the discussion further in the future, if you are interested.

May I ask you about two other comments you made? Although I have
encountered comments like them before, I suddenly realized that I really
don't know what the speaker means by them, as well as the speaker does.
That is, operationally. Here are the comments:

> ... . The point was to illustrate (not to prove) that animal construing > is limited by biology, and the capacity to symbolize...

What does 'the capacity to symbolize' mean?
What does one do, or is one witness to, when 'symbolizing' occurs?
What IS a symbol?

> ...(itself a result of biological evolution) is a critical feature of
> humans that allows us to make distinctions that animals can't, and to
> construe in much more subtle and elaborated ways.

What is it 'to construe'?
What kind of process / action / event is this?
What is its nature?

I appreciate you and others filling me in on these points, so I can get
more value from our conversations...and have a clearer picture of your
frame of reference.

Thanks, Gary

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What's in a name? Nothing. Nothing at all. That's the way it is.
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