I don't know how much this comes into play in this view of language, but the vocalizations of babies are limited not just by language acquisition and understanding but physiological development of muscles involved in speech. Babies might have a greater understanding of language but are constrained by physiological immaturity.

In the first days of their lives, French infants already cry in a different way to German babies. This was the result of a study by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, the Centre for Pre-language Development and Developmental Disorders (ZVES) at the University Clinic Würzburg, and the Laboratory of Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. In this study, the scientists compared recordings of 30 French and 30 German infants aged between two and five days old. While the French newborns more frequently produced rising crying tones, German babies cried with falling intonation. The reason for this is presumably the differing intonation patterns in the two languages, which are already perceived in the uterus and are later reproduced. (Current Biology, November 5th, 2009)

I don't think it is all about discrimination or elimination. It starts off as mimicry, cooing back to the mother. Discrimination or elimination seem to be a latter development.

I don't think it is all about discrimination or elimination. It starts off as mimicry, cooing back to the mother. Discrimination or elimination seem to be a latter development. — Cavacava

Great quote. And I hasten to say that I don't disagree - if anything, these sorts of studies underline just the point of the OP: that the use of language we tend to call proper is indeed a derivitive mode of language use. Indeed, one of the points made in the Johnston article I cite is that these 'material' aspects of language ("babbling infants joyfully and idiotically reveling in the bodily pleasures of pure, senseless sounds") must be attended to if we are to properly understand what it means use language. In a psychoanalytic key, Johnston continues, "an infant’s babbling, prior to his/her acquisition of and accession to language as a system of signifying signs employed in exchanges of ideas, frequently involves playing with phonemic elements of his/her auditory milieu as meaningless materials to be enjoyed for the sensations they produce in the libidinally charged orifices of the mouth (when vocalized) or the ears (when heard)."

In fact, if one is to take the studies you cite seriously, one should perhaps be careful in calling these cooing and warblings 'senseless': the different intonations of the babies cries seem to testify to another sort of sense at work, a sense that belongs to a different - sensual - order than the rationalist notions of sense that we tend to be accustomed too (and that are associated with language-proper). In the psychoanalytic literature, this type of sense if often referred to as jouis-sense, a 'enjoyment-sense' that revels in the rhythms of assonance and mimicry that constitute the babbling of babies. Maxine Sheets-Johnston, in her studies on movement, in fact decries those positions which attributes sense only to linguistic structures, and notes that for infants, sense primarily takes form in the mode of movement:

"Not only did we all learn to walk and to speak, but prior to these fundamental “I cans,” we all discovered ourselves in the acts of sucking, swallowing, crying, kicking, turning, stretching, reaching, smiling, babbling, and much, much more. In the process of discovering ourselves in all these ways, we expanded our repertoire of “I cans”; we learned possibilities of movement and became progressively aware of our capacity to move effectively with respect to these possibilities — by moving ourselves." Language here can be seen to be one specific type of precisely these 'learned possibilities', one grounded in a far more primordial experience according to which "quality [and hence sense - SX] is both fundamental and fundamentally kinetic. Before language creeps in and a typically Western adulthood settles us down to a blindered and reductive ... outlook, we perceive a world abounding in quality and we sense ourselves moving in qualitative ways." (Sheets-Johnston, The Primacy of Movement)

Again, the point is language as we know it is developmentally continuous, rooted in a world of which it is one element among a vast assemblage of things, movements, bodies, institutions and so on. One can't treat language as a reified world-unto-itself without ignoring the very conditions by which language can be what it is.

Yes, I agree with what you wrote. I think simple things such as an infants instinctual grasping of objects become cognitive over its maturation. If I remember correctly, Jean Piaget proposed that this reflex as well as other reflexes are transformed over into the cognitive realm as a child matures out of its earliest stages of development. Isn't this what Lacan calls the "Real"?

It's perhaps fair to say that our 'spontaneous', everyday approach to language is to hold 'adult' language as the standard to which all use of language ought to conform. Or, to make a slightly stronger claim, that the adult use of language just is what it means to use language, and every other manner of language use is in some way deficient, derivative, or a distortion of the 'proper' way of using language — StreetlightX

I actually don't agree with either of these. There may be such a thing as proper English and deficient, derivative, or distorted versions of it, as well as proper forms of French, Akan, Hindi, et cetera and deficient, derivative, or distorted versions of them, but I don't see why we should think that all languages ought to conform to their conventions or that doing so is what it means to use language. So in the case of a natural language like English, perhaps speaking it in the "adult" way just is what it means to use that language; but it doesn't follow from this that using language in a way comparable to adult English just is what it means to use language. Nor do I think that popular opinion (let alone common philosophical opinion) holds otherwise. If anything, the popular notion of a language is rather loose (to the point where people feel comfortable referring to honey bee waggle dances and vervet monkey signals as languages despite academic controversies over how to categorize them).

In more technical terms, we can say that we tend to think of the development of our linguistic ability in terms of a teleology where the ultimate aim, as it were, is to speak properly. — StreetlightX

Following up on the above, I think it would be more accurate to say that we tend to think of the learning of a specific language (like English) in terms of a teleology where the ultimate aim is to speak that language properly (where "properly" means something like "in accord with the relevant set of intersubjectively developed conventions"). The further contention that this just is what it means to speak properly, or that it is the only way to speak properly, seems unfounded. And ascribing it to the general populace seems to misunderstand their intentions in teaching language to others. If a parent tries teaching a child English and they come out speaking German, then the parent will be frustrated even if the child speaks "adult" German flawlessly. Similarly, a German teacher will not accept "but I am speaking properly according to the conventions of adult English" as an excuse for being unable to utter a single complete sentence in German.

What's of interest here is that language as we (adults) know it is primarily the result of a process of elimination - where what is 'eliminated' is the free-play of babbling, cooing and squealing noises into a set of narrower, constrained set of well-ordered phonemes that in fact constitute 'well spoken' language. — StreetlightX

I'm pretty sure that I am as capable of doing this as I ever was. So the ability hasn't really been eliminated. I've just learned that in order to communicate with others, I have two options: use one of the existing set of linguistic conventions, or forge a new one. The former is much easier (and the only one made explicit to me by my parents), so I went with that. But there are certainly people who attempt the second option from time to time.

To use language 'properly' is in fact to use language in an incredibly peculiar manner. A moment's reflection makes this quite obvious - the sheer number of different languages in the world attest to peculiarity of any one particular tongue. — StreetlightX

I think there might be an illegitimate shift going on here. That the use of any given language is peculiar (in the sense of unusual) due to the number of languages doesn't seem to be evidence for the claim that using (a) language in "properly" or in the "adult" way is peculiar (in any sense—and certainly not in the same sense given that it is quite ordinary for people to speak "adult" languages).

This small 'course correction' in our consideration of language, although seemingly obvious from a certain perspective, does in fact have some rather interesting philosophical ramifications. Specifically, it renders moot any attempt to try and secure a fabled 'extra-linguistic' reality by means of (proper) language alone. — StreetlightX

I have no idea what you mean by "secure" here. And unless it is being used as an odd synonym for "describe," I'm not sure what or whose project you might be objecting to. I'm also curious whether "fabled 'extra-linguistic' reality" is supposed to mean that you don't think there is any such thing as an extra-linguistic reality. Indeed, it would seem problematic for your argument if you did think such a thing when combined with other things you seem to think are true about language. Specifically, if there is no extra-linguistic reality, and if our language declares everything other than "proper" language to not be language, then there's no way of refuting such declarations. You can only get people to agree to new conventions (which changes what is true without refuting what was true), and anyone who wants to resist the change can dismiss your claims as nonsense until you succeed in shifting the intersubjective agreement.

It does this not in order to institute an ever strengthened linguistic idealism, but to exorcise idealism from language once and for all: by relativizing 'proper language' as an instance of a wider, more generalized phenomenon — StreetlightX

Again, this doesn't seem like anything revolutionary. So if you are trying to undermine an existing tradition, it is unclear how this move helps.

the very status of language itself is rendered 'extra-linguistic' — StreetlightX

I have no idea what this means. Was the status of language itself ever not extra-linguistic? The status of language is the status of language. That it may be described a certain way within the language doesn't make the status itself intra-linguistic.

making irrelevant any attempt to secure or reject metaphysical theses based on 'intra-linguistic' moves alone. — StreetlightX

I am again curious who the target is here. I can think of at least two opposing traditions that might both be seen as being in your sights here (both the ordinary language tradition and the metaphysicians of the post-Positivism/post-linguistic turn era). I suppose the moves you make might be a bit more relevant against the ordinary language movement, but that's more or less dead among contemporary philosophers. Contemporary metaphysicians, on the other hand, would deny that they are attempting to secure or reject metaphysical theses based on intra-linguistic moves alone.

Or rather, the very notion of an 'outside' or an 'inside' of language is deprived of sense, to the degree that language is always-already situated beyond itself and in relation to a milieu of human and even non-human action (a certain vocalization, intersubjective interaction, social convention and semantic resonances, etc). — StreetlightX

And again, I don't see how this follows. I have impressions I don't need words for, and things that I cannot describe in words. So it seems I still have room for understanding something as outside of any language I know (and thus something that can be outside language, even if there might be some language that can describe it even though mine cannot).

Ultimately, it is unclear what you are trying to get at here. But I'm less concerned about the conclusion (indeed, some of what I've written might be seen as helping that along) than I am with the argument for it.

Ultimately, it is unclear what you are trying to get at here. But I'm less concerned about the conclusion (indeed, some of what I've written might be seen as helping that along) than I am with the argument for it. — Postmodern Beatnik

That's fair enough PB. I guess I didn't name any explicit targets because A) I'm trying to aim at broader tendencies and attitudes in philosophy than any one particular position, and B) I meant this thread as a continuation of some themes I've been exploring and poking at in some other recent threads I've posted. Specifically, I'm interested in the perceived overlap between language and sense, and my 'target' are those positions which conceive of sense as a strictly linguistic phenomenon. In both this thread and the one on autism, I'm interested in looking at phenomena which exhibit sense while at the same time exceeding the linguistic sphere as we know it (the babble of babies, the movements of austistics) - thereby breaking the correlation between sense and language. There are at least two ramifications I want to draw from this:

1. First, it allows us to precisely specify the status of language as simply one element among a broader world wherein it holds no particularly special place. This perhaps seems rather commonsense, but it short-circuits the vulgar arguments about how we can never 'get outside of language' or how 'language can only refer to language', fueling the fires of some varieties of linguistic idealism. This is why speaking about the status of language matters: it's no good to say 'the status of language is the status of language': if we don't situate it among a broader plane of sense which extends beyond - or rather through - it, you can lapse into positions which treat language in abstracto, divorced from it's evolutionary-developmental history.

2. Second, it paves the way for a naturalization of sense. The question of sense is a particularly vexed one in philosophy, insofar as - excepting religious discourse which tries to attribute some conceptually incoherent and divinely ordained 'meaning' to the world - sense is very often understood to be some sort of 'subjective' veneer thrown over an asensate 'objective' state of affairs. But if we can untether sense from language, we can begin to understand sense as more than just a sort of subjective epiphenomenon that tends to be tied to language in it's syntactic, grammar-bound (and hence 'merely' human) form. One can begin to speak of an alinguistic sense that is operative at the level of bodies - whether it be in the movements of autistics or the tonal inflections of crying babies.

Both Sheets-Johnston, who I quote here, and Erin Manning, who I cite in the thread on autism, speak, for example, of a manner of thought that occurs as movement; movement here not understood merely as a displacement in space, but as an active relational engagement with an environment. This is why I refer to language as being constituted by more than 'adult' language - language which extends beyond the rule-governed rationalist conception we tend to understand it by, and which is instead operative at the level of sensation and affectivity. By paying attention to the liminal cases of sense - the movement-language of autistics and the jouissance inflected language of babies - we can see how so-called 'normal' language is simply a subspecies of a wider genera of naturalized sense production which has it's roots deep in an affective-coporeal realm which is often overlooked in reflections on language. I'm clearly not addressing you point by point here, but I just wanna give a taste of the motivations at work in the OP.

That's fair enough PB. I guess I didn't name any explicit targets because A) I'm trying to aim at broader tendencies and attitudes in philosophy than any one particular position, and B) I meant this thread as a continuation of some themes I've been exploring and poking at in some other recent threads I've posted. — StreetlightX

Yes, I realize that I might be missing a lot for not having read the other threads. But I do wonder where you are seeing these broad tendencies. At least within my own milieu, the ideas you seem to be going against are not even remotely popular. Wittgensteinian is dead, and postmodernism has never been popular among the English-speaking philosophers (cue Wittgensteinians' heads exploding over being associated with postmodernists).

1. First, it allows us to precisely specify the status of language as simply one element among a broader world wherein it holds no particularly special place. This perhaps seems rather commonsense, but it short-circuits the vulgar arguments about how we can never 'get outside of language' or how 'language can only refer to language', fueling the fires of some varieties of linguistic idealism. — StreetlightX

Ah, I see. From what you had written above, it seemed like you were arguing in favor of linguistic idealism (which would thereby increase my sense that what I was reading was both confused and confusing).

2. Second, it paves the way for a naturalization of sense. The question of sense is a particularly vexed one in philosophy, insofar as - excepting religious discourse which tries to attribute some conceptually incoherent and divinely ordained 'meaning' to the world - sense is very often understood to be some sort of 'subjective' veneer thrown over an asensate 'objective' state of affairs. — StreetlightX

Are you thinking of Frege here? Because I don't think this would be an accurate representation of what he's getting at when he talks about senses and referents. Even the Lockean can accept both a radical conventionalism and the claim that sense can be naturalized (since the conventions grow out of something external even we ultimately gain control of them to the point where we gain an awareness and control of speaker meaning). So maybe you have someone else in mind?

But if we can untether sense from language, we can begin to understand sense as more than just a sort of subjective epiphenomenon that tends to be tied to language in it's syntactic, grammar-bound (and hence 'merely' human) form. One can begin to speak of an alinguistic sense that is operative at the level of bodies - whether it be in the movements of autistics or the tonal inflections of crying babies. — StreetlightX

I think my real problem here is that I just can't think of a currently popular position that denies this. But again, this might be due to my academic milieu. Contemporary analytic philosophy of language has been so given over to evolutionary explanations that the notion of sense as a subjective epiphenomenon has no foothold.

I'm clearly not addressing you point by point here, but I just wanna give a taste of the motivations at work in the OP. — StreetlightX

I think that's the proper strategy. Maybe I just need to go back and read the other threads because I'm clearly still missing something important.

I am not sure about the difference between "following a rule" and "using language in a peculiar way." It's like saying, "Adult language isn't more specific than baby talk, baby talk is more general than adult language!" Um...

Also, the quoted passages in the OP seem to beat a dead horse of "Language is about restrictions and rules and smothers the free play of the child's naive mind!" Well, okay, but what are we supposed to do with that?

That being said, one seems to learn the particular sorts of nonverbal communication that normally come with spoken language before one learns the actual words. This toddler can't quite talk yet, but she has no problem carrying on an argument with her father:

Also, the quoted passages in the OP seem to beat a dead horse of "Language is about restrictions and rules and smothers the free play of the child's naive mind!" Well, okay, but what are we supposed to do with that? — Pneumenon

Not in the slightest. Constraints are always enabling constraints: their valence is entirely positive to the degree that 'restrictions' on the free play of language always always for new and far more complex moves to be made, not less. To eliminate is to enable. The account given in the OP is descriptive, not prescriptive, it's not a 'judgement' of language, it's just stating how it is. I think you're projecting things here.

A text can attempt to sell itself as "just a description," but there is such a thing as describing things in a way that carries subtle value judgments. A kind of semantic passive-aggression. But that's a tangential point.

My real question is this: how does your conclusion follow from your observations at the beginning? Are you just observing that language is derived from a more general set of behaviors? I'd grant that, but I'm not sure how this eliminates problems in philosophy of language; I could observe that the practice of mathematics is derivative of symbol manipulation, and then make some argument about how symbol manipulation is derivative of pre-rational behavior. None of this would inform me as to whether or not Platonism is true, however.

(Apologies if the foregoing is a bit cranky-sounding. I've been in a rotten mood lately and may be engaging in some semantic passive-aggression of my own.)

I think one needs to be careful with language here - I don't want to say that language is 'derived' from a more general set of behaviors so much as I want to say that it is an instance of those more general set of behaviors (albeit one that has it's own distinctive set of qualities). The point is that once this is acknowledged, the classical problems regarding how to 'bridge' the 'divide' between language and reality become a lot less pressing: language is no longer situated on a different plane than reality so much as it becomes an instance of it. Hence my dismissal of any notion of 'extra-linguistic reality' - not because such a thing doesn't exist, but because such a notion has no sense; the divide between what is 'linguistic' and 'extra-linguistic' here becomes nominal, a matter of convenience without ontological import.

Interesting, especially because this would seem to imply that the difference between language and reality is "merely" linguistic. Does this instance of self-reference do anything interesting? I have some ideas, but if you have anything to say, I'd like to hear it first.

Would it not be better to say that the difference between language and reality is a difference that insinuates itself as reality? The way to cash this out course - or at least my preferred way - is in terms of affect. To use language is to induce affects, to brighten the mood, to forge or break bonds of friendship and community, to pass the time, to seduce, to insult, to help one think, to enjoy another's company in humor, to establish your position of power over another, to submit to another, and so on. Language is a species of doing, a practical activity. We tend to think of language as a tool for communication; it is that, but 'communication' itself is a function of language's far more primordial power to affect: we don't induce affects by communicating in language; we communicate by affecting with language. This is one of the consequences of the reversal of hierarchy that the OP tries to get at: language as species, not genera.

Is this the rehabilitation of rhetoric? Meaning is use and we use it on each other?

The toddler knows tone and gesture as meaningful sans words, and for us to read words is to reanimate them in order to understand them, as one reads music...

And more so for the autistic - she uses it (her language) on the world, waving to the flag or the wind, scratching to the roughness, t(r)ickling to the water, singing the resonances of the room. Thus is the world structured and stabilised.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that puddles mean jumping in them. And laughing.

Less as rhetoric than as incantation:

"To make metaphysics out of spoken language is to make language convey what it does not normally convey. That is to use it in a new, exceptional and unusual way, to give it it's full, physical shock potential, to split it up and distribute it actively in space, to treat inflections in a completely tangible manner and restore their shattering power and really to manifest something; to turn language and its basely utilitarian, one might almost say alimentary, sources, against its origins as a hunted beast, and finally to consider language in the form of Incantation." (Antonin Artaud, "Metaphysics and the Mise en Scene")

Not 'finally', surely, but 'In the beginning...' or 'Once upon a time...'

Like this:

Yes, I realize that I might be missing a lot for not having read the other threads. But I do wonder where you are seeing these broad tendencies. At least within my own milieu, the ideas you seem to be going against are not even remotely popular. Wittgensteinian is dead, and postmodernism has never been popular among the English-speaking philosophers (cue Wittgensteinians' heads exploding over being associated with postmodernists). — Postmodern Beatnik

Interesting you say that because the traditions that I draw these ideas from are almost exactly these two quarters: 'postmodernism' and Wittgensteinian approaches to language. With the so-called 'post-modern' authors in particular, alot of the furor directed at their ideas was based precisely on the misunderstanding of their affirmation that sense extended far beyond the linguistic realm. People thought that this meant something like 'everything is language', when in fact, it meant the exact opposite: that language as we know it is in fact just an exemplary subdomain of sense, the study of which would allow us to cast light on phenomena not traditionally understood as linguistic. Frankly, I'm not convinced that the ramifications of their insights have been truly absorbed, even today.

From what you had written above, it seemed like you were arguing in favor of linguistic idealism (which would thereby increase my sense that what I was reading was both confused and confusing). — Postmodern Beatnik

Perhaps this is a symptom of what I mean when I say that these insights haven't been absorbed. When I said that one shouldn't speak of an 'extra-linguistic reality', this is because the whole point is to dispute the very idea of a sharp (a priori) diving line between what would constitute the linguistic and the non-linguistic. At the very least, such a division would be one that would be instituted historically, institutionally, pragmatically, for the sake of setting down some limits to analysis. We have to change not just what we think but how we think: we can no longer naively appeal to categories like 'inside' and 'outside' (of language - or thought, for that matter), without qualifying ourselves. It's one thing to say that one recognizes the evolutionary-developmental rootedness of language. It's another to pursue it's implications all the way.

The point is that once this is acknowledged, the classical problems regarding how to 'bridge' the 'divide' between language and reality become a lot less pressing: language is no longer situated on a different plane than reality so much as it becomes an instance of it. — StreetlightX

I don't think the classical problems are simply regarding how to 'bridge' the 'divide' between language and reality but between, for example, the string of symbols "chair" and the thing upon which I'm sat. I think it obvious that language is an "instance" of reality (which I assume just means that language is a real thing that really happens) but less clear is how this "instance" relates to some other (often very specific) "instance".

I don't think the classical problems are regarding simply how to 'bridge' the 'divide' between language and reality but between, for example, the string of symbols "chair" and the thing upon which I'm sat. I think it obvious that language is an "instance" of reality (which I assume just means that language is a real thing that really happens) but less clear is how this "instance" relates to some other (often very specific) "instance". — Michael

But once you cash language out as a kind of significant behavior - as an action - it's no less puzzling than how me pointing to a chair 'refers' to a chair. Frankly, my pointing doesn't 'refer' to anything whatsoever. My pointing gesture is not a 'stand in' for the chair any more than the string of symbols 'chair' is. Instead, for me to understand what your pointing 'means' is just for me to be able to act or react to your gesture in the appropriate manner, given the particular circumstance in which the pointing has taken place. This is why it pays to 'dissolve' language into a wider realm of significance in general: it allows us to show just how wrongheaded it is to ask how a string of symbols 'relates' to something. It's not the string of symbols that's doing the relating - I am, insofar as I am a product of an education which has thought me how to use language and act appropriately in certain circumstances of those usages (to respond correctly, etc).

Think about, for example, how I know I can't walk through walls. The wall holds a particular significance with respect to my body - try as I might, I've learnt that it ain't gonna happen. Similarly, I learn that to use language in a certain way - to say this, rather than that - is to afford certain outcomes, to bring about certain states of affairs. The wall doesn't 'refer' to my inability to walk through it any more than words 'refer' to things. Instead, I come to know the significance of both the wall and the inky scribble arranged just-so on the page in front of me. In each case I have a practical knowledge of things, a way of moving about the room in one case, a way of responding appropriately in the other. This dimension of praktognosis (practical knowledge) and it's importance is very hard to parse if one treats language in isolation without recognizing it's imbrication with the world.

I don't think the classical problems are simply regarding how to 'bridge' the 'divide' between language and reality but between, for example, the string of symbols "chair" and the thing upon which I'm sat. I think it obvious that language is an "instance" of reality (which I assume just means that language is a real thing that really happens) but less clear is how this "instance" relates to some other (often very specific) "instance". — Michael

The problem is the "how" is entirely absence. When we use language, nothing manifests which specifies now word is talking about a particular thing. It is always already embedded within the language. If I use the string of symbols "chair" to talk about something, what I reference is already contained in my language use. In this usage of "chair," I understand what the string "chair" is talking about, and so does anyone else who is using the same language as me. No bridge exists. Asking what it looks like will always come-up empty because it isn't there. One is asking for a description the treasure chest as it appears in an empty room, which is a futile question of contradiction.

In succinct terms, there is no relation. A use of language exists and someone either knows what it talking about (they make use of it) or they do not (they do no know what the language is saying).

Interesting, especially because this would seem to imply that the difference between language and reality is "merely" linguistic. Does this instance of self-reference do anything interesting? I have some ideas, but if you have anything to say, I'd like to hear it first. — Pneumenon

For me the critical aspect is dropping the idea of "deriving." All the controversy about the meaning of language pivots on the idea of "deriving" what language means or references.

Supposedly, there aspect of our world which enables language to mean and refer, which then allows us to infer what language means from outside language. Using "chair" to talk about the object I'm sitting on, for example, is thought to need some sort of outside support, or else we are left with a "mystery" of what language means and how we speak about anything with language. The problem of "mystery" is created entirely by taking the assumption language is derived.

In a critical sense, the difference between language and reality is linguistic. It means that, by it definition, our language talks about reality. "Chair" means and refers to a specific instance of the world. And we (who use the language) know it does and can talk about it. "Mystery" is nonsensical. We have language and we know what it means. Language is its own state of the world (i.e. not "derived") and it, as an existing state, it talks about reality (making all of reality and its differences "linguistic" ) .

But once you cash language out as a kind of significant behavior - as an action - it's no less puzzling than how me pointing to a chair 'refers' to a chair. Frankly, my pointing doesn't 'refer' to anything whatsoever. My pointing gesture is not a 'stand in' for the chair any more than the string of symbols 'chair' is. Instead, for me to understand what your pointing 'means' is just for me to be able to act or react to your gesture in the appropriate manner, given the particular circumstance in which the pointing has taken place. This is why it pays to 'dissolve' language into a wider realm of significance in general: it allows us to show just how wrongheaded it is to ask how a string of symbols 'relates' to something. It's not the string of symbols that's doing the relating - I am, insofar as I am a product of an education which has thought me how to use language and act appropriately in certain circumstances of those usages (to respond correctly, etc). — StreetlightX

And I would probably agree with this. I was just pointing out that your account of the classical problems seemed imprecise. They're not over how language relates to reality but over how language relates to other parts of reality. One of the prominent classical problems is that of the notion of "correspondence". A statement (e.g. "the chair is in the other room") is true if something else -- something other than the empirical use of the language and any associated significant behaviour -- is the case. Your account, rather than making this problem "less pressing", just seems to reject this notion of correspondence, which rather than having no ontological import, has a rather significant one. As your account seems to explain (or "dissolve") the meaning and truth of such a statement in (immediate?) empirical and conceptual terms it seems to imply the sort of idealism or anti-realism that you claim to deny.

I'm not sure I follow. Why would it imply that?

Because the meaning and truth of statements like "the chair exists" is being tied up in/is dependent on empirical and conceptual behaviours/events rather than something else, and that's the position argued by the anti-realist/idealist.

What specifically makes it anti-realist or idealist though? Like, you're missing a step.

1. Meaning and truth of statements like "the chair exists" is being tied up in/is dependent on empirical and conceptual behaviours/events rather than something else.
2. ???
3. Therefore this account is anti-realist/idealist.

#1 is the anti-realist position.

Why? What specifically is anti-realist about it? Third time I'm asking dude.

It's anti-realist because the conditions required for the statement to be true are empirical or conceptual conditions and not verification-transcendent conditions. To maintain some sort of realism you need for the truth of some given statement to depend on something other than what we see or what we say or what we think and that requires explaining the nature and origin of the relevant relationship between this other thing and the language we use. As you reject this notion of reference and correspondence you reject what is required for realism.

But why in the world would realism require verfication-transcendent conditions? It's as if you were to say: the fact that I can't walk through walls depends on me being there to walk around in the first place... therefore, so too does the wall. But such a conclusion is self-evidently absurd. The first statement is a rather obvious - indeed tautological - statement regarding a relation (wall-me), the second, regarding only a term (wall). The move from the one to other is illegitimate. Similarly, that truth, which is an operation of language-use, depends on the use of that language is to state nothing more than a tautology. Notice that this allows for neither a realist or an anti-realist reading: you can't draw conclusions from tautologies, as you seem to want to do. It's just another instance of Stove's Worst Argument in the World.

But why in the world would realism require verfication-transcendent conditions? — StreetlightX

Because that's what it means to be a realist, as per Dummett's account in Realism where he coined the term "anti-realism" as the rejection of this view.

Similarly, that truth, which is an operation of language-use, depends on the use of that language is to state nothing more than a tautology.

Many say that a statement is true if it corresponds to some verification-transcendent state-of-affairs (i.e. something "above and beyond" experience and ideas and language-use). This is the traditional realist view, and it's the one I reject (hence why I'm an anti-realist). And it's because your account also rejects such a thing that it is anti-realist (as per Dummett's coinage).