Lexicon of Arguments

 

II 190
Lexicon/Language/Meaning/Cavell: e.g. we want to know what "Umiak" means and look into the lexicon. What do we do? We cannot discover anything about the world here. It is also not a characteristic process of learning.
>Learning, >Meaning, >Translation.
Before we took the lexicon, we knew everything about the word, so to speak, but not what we were supposed to associate with it. We knew already what a noun is, how to name an item and look up a word, what boats are, and what an Eskimo is. In fact, we have brought the world to the lexicon!
>Words, >Word meaning, >World/thinking.
The opposite route is necessary if, for example, we discover a small boat in Alaska we have never seen before. (Picture book to identify birds Vs lexicon).
Question: What is it or how is it called?
>Naming, >Identification, >Individuation.
II 191
Cavell: How you can find out depends on what you already know.
>Knowledge, >Prior knowledge.