The use of language

As I listened to the sermon at our church last week, I suddenly felt "inspired." I don't recall what spurred this train of thought, but it consumed me, and so I wrote a bunch of notes intending to write it up for this blog.

First thought: If I am ever going to write much of anything on this blog, I probably can't afford to be quite as scholarly as I prefer.

It has always been my habit to try to quote things absolutely accurately. I try not to rely on my memory, but to find printed statements that I can reference to back up every statement I make.

I do that partially to avoid the possibility of implying someone said something or claimed something or believes something that he or she never quite claimed or said or believed. After all, I know that I have been charged with teaching certain ideas-- . . . ideas against which I may not have great antipathy, but with which I certainly do not want to be identified.

And having suffered the consequences of such false charges, I want to be sure I don't do to others what was done to me.

At the same time, it really is difficult--it takes inordinate amounts of time--to document every claim one makes. And if one has to do that kind of work, one may never get done what one needs to do!

After that basic idea crossed my mind, I realized there are additional issues related to quoting people, even if and as one takes them very explicitly at their word!

So this is what I began to think about:

1. I don't always "hear" accurately.
   
   1. Did I physically/mentally hear accurately?
       
   2. Did I understand accurately?
       
   3. Did I interpret accurately?
   All of these are part of accurate hearing. If I fail at any one, I will have failed to "hear" accurately!
2. So suppose I hear fully accurately: Will I be interpreted accurately by others? I have a real fear that
   
   • Others may misinterpret my meaning!
      
   • Others may misinterpret my intention!
3. How and/or why might people misinterpret my meaning or intention?
   
   • Because there is always the denotation and the connotation of one's words.
      
   • There are "webs" of
     
     • Knowledge.
        
     • Belief.
        
     • Commitment.
        
     • Emotion
   • All of these are interrelated, but the exact interrelationships are usually unclear, even to the person who speaks! For example, can we always be sure that we know what another person means (let alone what we ourselves mean) when we say, for example,
     
     • I believe.
        
     • I think.
        
     • I am thinking.
        
     • I'm wondering.
        
     • I'm testing a hypothesis.
        
     • Etc.
   • For many of us, if someone says (or, rather, if we ourselves say), "I can't believe ________," then, it seems, logically, we must be implying a corollary: "[That means] I do believe ________."
     
     --But, I've come to realize, not everyone always comes to or is willing to be held to these kinds of "logical" correlative conclusions. Some of us hold what would appear to be mutually exclusive ideas in more-or-less comfortable (or uncomfortable!) tension. We refer to them as paradoxes or mysteries. (In Christian theology we refer to the Trinity in such terms. In physics we refer to the dual nature of light as particle and wave in similar terms.)
     
     Some of us are comfortable with these kinds of "impossibilities"; others of us less so.
   
   
   
   

I'll stop here for today.