andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> >
> > Does the fact that that a saying was or was not
> > uttered by a reprehensible
> > monster make any difference?
>
> It could, in the same that that if Shakespeare's works
> were written by Bacon it would put a whole differenbt
> light on them from a certain perspective.
>
> [clip]
> Well, true propositions are true regardless of who
> says them. On the other hand they may have different
> conntations and even different meanings insofar as
> speaker's meaning (see H.R. Grice) is relevant, what
> is intended to be communicated matters.
I haven't read Grice, but this seems similar to a distinction E.D. Hirsch draws between meaning and significance. Meaning (roughly) = intention of the speaker/writer. Significance incorporates all the uses to which anyone may put the utterance. I just read a review of a book on ancient Assyrian cooking (it appears there are three clay tablets with recipes from about 3000+ years ago). The _meaning_ would be the same today as 3000 years ago: this is how a dish should be prepared. The significance for us is the light it throws on ancient mesopotamian culture _and_ on the continuities of that culture from then to modern Baghdad, all of which could not possibly have been intended by the original composer.
As is usual with such distinctions, this one begins to blur when put into practice, but it is still useful to keep in mind as one wrestles with a literary or political text. A brief exchange I had with Charles sometime in the last couple of weeks over a text from Pound illustrates the difference. I found a _useful_ significance in the text, which (though I didn't develop this) was partially grounded in Pound's precision and control of cadence as a writer but which differed sharply from Pound's (presumed) intentions. Charles insisted on clinging strictly to the meaning (in Hirsch's sense) and on that basis condemning it.
Carrol