Xu writes,
In China we use something like "cognitive
linguistic context".
Well, that may make sense in Chinese, but not as you translate it, I'm sorry
(:(), or so it seems to me (Never mind, I'm far from a purist :)). Troubles
I see with your Chinese expression:
1. how come it can be linguistic AND cognitive
at the same time?
Are you adopting a Fodor-like theory of
a Language Of Thought?
"linguistic" are things like chains of phones and phonemes
"cognitive" are things like beliefs and intentions
(nowadays called "metarepresentations).
2. why restrict "context" to the linguistic and/or cognitive?
usually other features (mainly physical, e.g. referents
for deictics) are just as essential- admittedly,
as they are "cognised" by the communicators.
3. Therefore, I think "cognitive environment" is a better
expression.
Sperber/Wilson's Relevance (index) has entry for
"cognitive environment", 38-46, ff.
but not for
"cognitive context". On the other hand the book does have an entry for
"context", 12ff
"contextual effect"
and "contextualisation"
but not for "environment" as such.
"Cognitive environment" is first used on p.38., in section "Cognitive
environments & manifestness", so it seems to be RT's preferred term of art.
It is defined in claim (40)
(40) a cognitive environment of an individual is
a set of facts that are manifest to him.
To be manifest is "to be perceptible or inferrable" (note: to be more
precise "we might say that to be manifest is to be capable of being
perceived or inferred without being immediately invalidated", n.28). This
refinement in the note is to allow for cases where
1. the individual can perceive that p, but do not believe that p.
(e.g. Tweety perceives a cat, but does not believe there's a cat before him)
2. The individual may infer that there is a cat, but do not
perceive it
(e.g. Tweety just perceives "evidence" that the cat is around).
As Sperber/Wilson put it,
"one can mistrust one's senses, and hence perceive and yet
not believe" (p.258).
Recall Tweetie's monologue:
"I perceive a wicked black cat before me"
"I believe there is a black cat before me"
"Oh, yes, there IS a black cat before me"
(Tweety's example was a favourite example with my professor of epistemology.
I'm afraid we worked with translations of the original English, and I trust
Tweety's English is more idiomatic). Sperber/WIlson write,
"once can perceive and yet not believe".
(p.258).
Note that for example for Grice, even though "see" (a verb of perception) is
a factive (ceteris paribus) on can have (Grice's example (Studies, p.44)):
3. Macbeth sees Banquo.
where Macbeth may be conscious (in Shakespeare's tragedy he isn't but never
mind) that he is hallucinating, and so, he may not believe that there is
Banquo in front of him to be seen (Traditionalist Grice concludes that we
are using "see" in a "loose" way in a claim like (3)). A second case
Sperber/Wilson consider is when
"one infers and not believe,
as when a validly inferred conclusion
contradicts a strongly held belief.
This points to the complexity of the cognitive environment. After a
convincing and very logical lecture on the Neo Darwinist Evolutional Theory,
the auditor may be led to believe that Man does Descends from the Apes (as
inferred, inter alia, from Neo-Genetics, Darwin's Theory of the survival of
the fittest plus Malthus's idea of geometrical increase of population vs.
arithmetical increase of food). Yet, upon leaving the conference hall, he
reminds the previous Sunday Presbyterean sermon, that it, that Man was
created directly by God after his image, and so he opts for a strongly held
belief than a validly inferred conclusion. Of course, life (and thus
science!) being relative, one never knows what is validly inferred and what
is not!
In Sperber/Wilson, the concept of COGNITIVE environment co-exists with that
of PHYSICAL environment, and indeed it may be thought of as being derivable
from that of "physical" environment PLUS rational capacities: "an
individual's total congitive environment is a function"
in the set-theoretical usage
"of his phyiscal environment and his cognitive abilities" (p.39). The
psychological (explanatory) role of cognitive environment comes in when
communication enters the picture: "when you communicate" - Sperber/Wilson
write - "your intention is [at least. JLS] to ALTER the cogntive environment
of your addressee" (p.46)
Best,
JL
(Mr)
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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