Brown Book: Difference between revisions

(Remark: This difference does not lie, however, in the act of pointing and pronouncing the word or in any mental act (meaning)﹖ accompanying it, but in the role which the demonstration (pointing & pronouncing) plays in the whole training and in the use which is made of it in the practice of communication by means of this language. One might think that the difference could be described by saying that in the different cases we point to different kinds of objects. But suppose I point with {{Brown Book Ts reference|Ts-310,6}} my hand to a blue jersey. How does pointing to its colour differ from pointing to its shape? – We are inclined to say the difference is that we ''mean'' something different in the two cases. And “meaning” here is to be some sort of process taking place while we point. What particularly tempts us to this view is that a man on being asked whether he pointed to the colour or the shape is, at least in most cases, able to answer this & to be certain that his answer is correct. If on the other hand, we look for two such characteristic mental acts as meaning the colour and meaning the shape, etc., we aren't able to find any, or at least none which must always accompany pointing to colour, pointing to shape, respectively. We have only a ''rough'' idea of what it means to concentrate one's attention on the colour as opposed to the shape, or vice versa. The difference one might say does not lie in the act of demonstration, but rather in the surrounding of that act in the use of the language.)