15.12 Words, Ideas, and Things -- And Their Essential Bi-Polar, Dialectic Nature

Other philosophers and semanticists have been here before me -- Locke, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski and many others. We will take a closer look at their work at a later date, both in the history of philosophy, and later in this section. But right now, I want to take a shot at this myself -- at trying to figure out at least some aspects of the intricate relationship between words, ideas, and things.

We can start by saying that there is a 'triadic', 'triangular', and/or 'trialectic' relationship between words, ideas, and things. For descriptive purposes, let us imagine an upside down trianglue pointing down towards the 'earth' -- the 'things' and 'processes' on the earth and in the sky -- with the two upper points of the triangle representing 'ideas' and 'words'.

Now let us make another distinction here. Words can be defined. Ideas can be defined. Indeed, words are only sybolic short forms for ideas so both can be 'defined'. In contrast, 'things' and 'processes' or 'phenomena' as I will often refer to them cannot be 'defined'. They can only be 'described' and/or 'named'. Ideas then, are man-made 'mental images'. Words are short forms for these mental images. And anything made by God and/or Nature -- take your pick or split the difference if you are a 'pantheist' -- cannot be defined but only described and named.

Likewise with anything made by man that has some sort of 'phyical presence, substance, and/or process' connected to it. Thus, the idea of a 'telephone' can only be defined whereas the physical presence of a telephone can only be described and/or named. Now that may create problems that I am presently unaware of, but it sounds good right now, so for the present at least, we will go with it.

Some of you might argue that 'words can be described' and 'things can be defined' but I say that this just creates mental confusion rather than mental clarity and we are seeking mental clarity here, not mental confusion. I think the distinction we are making is important.

It should be noted that we can start anywhere on the 'triangular process or cycle' of words, ideas, and things and then move on towards connecting the other two points of the triangle or pieces of the puzzle -- word or name, idea or concept, and 'thing, process, or phenomenal referent'. Tic, tac, toe.

Now, let us back up a bit and analyze part of what I have done here from a different perspective. Anyone can create a new idea and/or make up a new name for the idea. I did that with the word 'trialectic'. To my knowledge, it has not been used before, at least not in anything that I have read. At this point, I realize that you can indeed describe an idea and a word as a short form for the idea. For example, if I wanted to define 'trialectic', I might say something like: A trialectic is the same idea as a dialectic but with three participants rather than two, whether these 'participants' be people, things, processes, characteristics, words, ideas, theories, philosophies...or whatever. Now this definition assumes that you have an idea as to what 'dialectic' means. If not, then more definition and/or description is needed. In this regard, we can define 'definition' as a succinct amount of description aimed at giving the word-idea being defined the most amount of clear meaning possible within the confines of the shortest amount of space possible which is generally one sentence. Any extension of meaning beyond this is usually called a 'description'.

A 'description' of 'trialectic' might move beyond the definition above to give examples and/or to come up with more descriptions of the word/idea that might give it more clarity of meaning to those of you who have not bumped into it before in your reading or thinking -- which probably is most of you in this particular case.

Thus, to correct what was first stated at the beginning of this essay, we need to distinguish between 'word/idea-descriptions' and 'phenomenal descriptions' (the latter representing descriptions of things, processes, animals, people, etc...)

This brings us to one further point. We have talked about the triangular, triadic, and/or trialectic nature of 'words, ideas, and things'. Ideas generally represent -- or are intended to represent -- things, processes, animals, people, encounters, relationships, descriptions, characteristics, etc., all of which we are calling 'phenomena'. This definition is complicated by the existence of 'false phenomena' -- fiction, fantasies, lies, manipulations, errors, dreams, myths, limits in perception, misinterpretations, etc. This we will have to leave for the subject of future essays.

The last point then here that I wish to make is this: words are creations of the human psyche or mind. And if you assume, like I have, based on the work of Anaximander, Heraclitus, the Han philosophers, Hegel, Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy), Freud, Jung, Perls, and many others -- that the human psyche and the human body is basically bi-polar, or rather 'multi-bi-polar' -- then it should not shock us when I say that words as creations of the human mind are also essentially bi-polar. That is, they serve both a selfish and a social function. And similarly, they can be both selfishly (or 'narcissistically' to use the more technical term) and socially defined.

Social definitions require social agreements. Selfish definitions don't. The meanings of words include both selfish and social definitions and descriptions. When we have a 'communication breakdown', this means that we can have any of a significant number of different possible problems that can arise because of the essential bi-polar or dialectical nature of words and their meaning -- such as: a conflict between opposing narcissistic meanings, two different social meanings, a narcissistic meaning and a social meaning, a non-underestood narcissistic or social meaning, and anything else that I might have missed here.

To investigate the ambiguity of the meaning of words and the ideas they represent then, it will usually serve us well to know not only that words have different ranges and focuses of meaning (different levels of abstraction, see Korzybski, Hayakawa, General Semantics...), but also that they have both selfish and social functions, and in this regard, different selfish and social meanings. This is the bi-polar, dialectic nature of words as projections of the human mind and its essential multi-bi-polar, multi-dialectic nature.

dgb, Dec. 16-17th, 2007.