We need to define terms. I have no doubt we are all using words that we believe have common meanings. I am sure that they don't.

Tom wrote: Their contention is that our understandings are substantially organized as metaphors, not logical classes in any strict Aristotelian sense - and those metaphorical manipulations are what are cognitively occurring when people think. (They also posit that over 95% (??) of the cognitive processing that supports thinking is inaccessible to introspective thinking.)

I would like more on this topic...... but,

I also need to know what Tom means by "cognitive processing", "thinking", etc.

I will assume that "metaphor" "logical classes" etc. are being used as defined in a good dictionary. Do we need to spec. which one? Can we make this assumption?

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2000

Answers

Fine by me.

It would be helpful in ascertaining whether when speaking we using the connotative aspects of a term to suggest a relationship, or the denotative aspect of a term to actually assert a "firmer" type of relation.

Strikes me that our missives would end up being pretty pedantic if we defined terms as we went (that's what footnotes are for) so do you have any recommendations as to where these definitions should be captured? At the end of the particular post? or maybe on a separate thread (like this one)?

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2000

So... Would you like a category for "Definitions" David?

Diane

(BTW... odd... both my Earthlink and Yahoo e-mail are inaccessible at the moment... Thursday 7:15 am PST. Have heard that others in Silicon Valley are having e-mail problems. Wonder what that's about? Y2K delayed?)

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2000

Or... "Cognitive Definitions"?

-- Anonymous, March 23, 2000

I think it makes sense to work on formulating definitions of terms both in the body of a post and in footnotes. Let everyone kick a definition around a bit and when it is in a more-or-less satisfactory shape, move it to the catagory---definitions---maybe sub catagories inside that heading.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2000