A FIELD THEORY OF MEANING

by Hugh M. Lewis

The problem of meaning is perhaps one of the most important and interesting for anthropology, yet it remains difficult to define, intractable to analysis and investigation, and from a metalogical point of view, inherently and inescapably paradoxical--our scientific discussion of meaning is always somewhat relativistically embedded in the very meaning that is being discussed. The following briefly summarizes main points that are relevant to a scientific understanding of this problem.

Analytic/Synthetic Theory. All theory contains elements which are both analytical and synthetic and all theory therefore operates between these two separate but coincidental levels--the level of the part and the level of the whole, respectively. Some theories are primarily more one kind than the other. Broadly the two kinds define different levels of general conceptual experience which are dialectically interrelated.

Historical Criteria of Scientificity. The scientificity of any theory is not determined rationally by its relative analytical/synthetic character, but by its demonstrable ability to account for a diverse range of phenomena which would otherwise seem unrelated and its proven productivity in being able to incorporate a range of peripheral phenomena which was not previously predictable without the theory. Scientificity is weighed empirically by a theories demonstrable effectiveness and because proof is always after the fact of its demonstration, such evidence is basically historical and retrospective. Because it is historical, it is susceptible to ideological revision.

Scientific Prototypicality. A corollary of this historical criteria of scientificity is the conventional and a priori 'prototypicality' which takes as its factual primes basic constructs of time, space, thingness, motion, state, action, relation and change. such theory rests upon the concreteness, common senseness, and consensuality of prototypical nouns and verbs whose reference are basic, underivative, unbound and relatively independent of significance from the internal conditioning of language. The facticity upon which positivistic versions of science depends upon such prototypicality of terms and things related. Prototypicality is defined by its basicness. Prototypicality also constitutes the perceptual/conceptual foundations for an etic and objective realist or materialist orientation to the world, as well as the basis for a more emic, noumenal, idealist orientation. More prototypical terms and things have a greater objectiveness of reference than less prototypical ones. Translation and interpretation also depends upon the basic prototypicality of terms and things which are more inherently translatable and interpretable. A twitch of an eye is prototypically more of a blink than a wink. Prototypicality frames our primarily presentational experience of the world as if first hand.

Natural Systems Theory. Natural patterning is held to operate on at least three separate but interrelated orders or levels of presentational experience. The levels constitute a hierarchy of determinations and the development of our science reflects and represents these different orders of natural systems.

Relational Logic. Natural systems are held to be ordered on the basis of a kind of relational logic in which structural patterning and change are constituted in a contextual framework of inter-relatedness. Relational logic attempts to reduce this inter-relatedness in systematic and axiomatic way that is amenable to scientific theorization.

Constraint and Change. By definition, meaning is constrained and it is the constraints upon meaning which constitute the basis of its 'structure'. Meaning is also critically conditioned by change--by randomness of order.

Conventionality, Conditionality and Contextuality. The basis of constraint in meaning is conventional cultural associations which embed meaning in an implicit field of relational and symbolic significances, conditionality of reference, whether implicit or explicit and the relational contextuality of the configuration which outlines and grounds its significance.

Frames of Reference/Inference. The configuration of meaning from an infinite field of relational possibility entails a chunking, a segmenting of this field into 'schemata'. This is the process of 'framing'. In framing, reference and inference are dialectically complementary and mutually necessary. Frames are both internalized in the psyche and externalized upon the world, are preeminently symbolic in structure and function--and internal and external frames are brought into alignment through the process of accommodation and assimilation.

Language and Cognition. In primary acquisition, language and cognitive development are held to be parallel, interdependent and convergent processes. Both begin wit the process of naming or name association. The ordering of conscious experience in the young child depends upon this process, and upon the available effective environment. There is a passive, perceptual, 'sensori-motor' side of experience which constitutes a basic substrate to consciousness and which is structured through analogical association, emblematic pattern recognition and multimodal synaesthetic integration of experience. Naming implies the superimposition upon this structure of a more syntactically ordered 'homological' structure by which relational associations are propositionally based. A child's negativity is the primary indicator of the child's first use of logical counterfactuals, assertion of independent identity and reason, and is an important prime in the constitution of both rational and normative meaning. All more complex cognitive functions of counting, conservation, transitivity, etc. depend critically upon linguistic acquisition.

Cognitive Mapping. A child develops a cognitive 'map'--a mental topography of symbolic representations which allow the child to navigate, mediate, explore, and extend her life world. The externalized frames of the environment, superimposed by significant others and having a remarkable degree of 'subjective inevitability' are brought into alignment with the child's internalized frames. This basic process continues throughout the individual's life.

Dichotomic Paradigms. Basic metaphorical dichotomies--male/female, nature/culture, etc.--constitute fundamental dimensions of the universe of meaning and together constitute a central relational paradigm of meaning.

Parallel Processing Devices. Meaning is constituted by several parallel processing devices which co-occur at different levels of significance. It is possible that the bilateral symmetry of life constitutes the basis for such parallel processing devices--in the structure of DNA and chromosome pairs, in right and left hemispheres of the brain, in internalized and externalized worlds of experience as well as between people in dyadic pairs.

Dialectical Dynamics of Discourse. Dialectical systems are cybernetic and cybernetic systems function dialectically. Such systems are defined by the mutually interrelated components which regulate the functioning of other elements. Dialectical systems may be simple two value systems or more complex multi-value systems. The patterning of such complex dialectical systems tends to be 'weakly' chaotic--the paradigm of relational possibilities which they can generate between their elements fall into a fixed number of 'state cycles'. Simple systems are strongly anti-chaotic and are quite stable in their configuration, while multiple systems are more 'unbiased' and tend toward greater 'self organized' criticality on the verge of chaos.

The functioning of the meaning at all levels is held to be dialectically 'anti-chaotic'. Such constrained meaning systems are self organizing systems which are relatively stable and yet quite flexible, and even sometimes radically transformative.

Dyadic discourse between two 'speaker/hearers' is held to be such a dialectical system--and constitutes the basis of wider social network patterns.

Syllogistic Structure of Discourse. All discourse is held to be propositionally based, and from a semantic point of view, constitutes a chaining together of syllogistic sets in which 'speaker/hearers' schematic frames of reference/inference are elicited, evaluated and modified in relation to a discursively significant 'other'. This syllogistic semantic structure of discourse constitutes the natural, 'oral' structure of speech practices.

Relativistic Knowledge and World View. Our theory of Meaning has not yet taken fully into account the implications of the inherent relativity of our knowledge. Theories of relativity have been misrepresented as 'anti-scientific' and yet a science of meaning must also necessarily constitute a science of the relativity of meaning. All identity is only relative identity, all difference is only relative difference. Nothing is absolutely so, not even relativity. Even relativity is relative.

The World View problem is in a sense inescapable--we cannot escape the influence of our language as it encodes experience in the world. It is our 'hermeneutic/historical horizon' of knowledge. This is our ultimate Karma relation with the world in which knowing creates duty.

Evolution of Mind and Nature. Reviving a somewhat outmoded and risky concept, Mind is rooted in culture and culture derives its order and vitality from Mind. Gregory Bateson speaks of a necessary unity between the two great stochastic systems of 'learning' and 'evolution'. Of the grand arc of human possibility the dialectic of Mind and Nature, constitute a paradigm of meaning which we are constrained to obey if our lives are to make any sense. "In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world, the human organism is itself transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produce himself." (Berger and Luckman; 1967: 183)