Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Meaning, the mind and the brain
- 1 The cognitive turn
- 2 The long history of mind linguistics
- 3 What do we know about mental concepts?
- 4 Morphing theoretical sémes into ‘real’ concepts
- 5 From mental representations to conceptual ontologies
- 6 What is meaning?
- 7 Where should we look for meaning?
- Part II Discourse and society
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Where should we look for meaning?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Meaning, the mind and the brain
- 1 The cognitive turn
- 2 The long history of mind linguistics
- 3 What do we know about mental concepts?
- 4 Morphing theoretical sémes into ‘real’ concepts
- 5 From mental representations to conceptual ontologies
- 6 What is meaning?
- 7 Where should we look for meaning?
- Part II Discourse and society
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Cognitive linguistics, as I see it, has failed to come up with a convincing theory about the mind being the seat of meaning. Similarly, the philosophy of mind has been unable to present us with a model of the mind free of internal contradictions. This leaves us puzzled. There are four options concerning the seat of meaning that have been explored, to a greater or lesser extent, namely:
a) the individual intentional mind, the mind that understands meaning;
b) the individual computational mind/brain, i.e. the mind enclosed in the hardware environment of the brain, carrying out programs for processing language;
c) the brain where language becomes reality;
d) the discourse as the collective mind.
In this last chapter of this part of the book, the part devoted to the cognitive conception of the mind as the seat of meaning, I want to summarise the two core stances, as I see them, namely the one of the intentional mind and the one of the computational mind. I will then explore a more recent stance, focusing on the brain as an object of science rather than on the mind as an object of speculation. Finally, I will introduce my own stance, that of the discourse as the collective mind of a discourse community, the stance to which the second part of this book will be devoted.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Meaning, Discourse and Society , pp. 88 - 110Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010