Martin Schmalz-Dr. Anadale-Contemporary Philosophy-4/06/16
Helen Keller & Sokolowski’s Phenomenology
Helen Keller’s amazing story of how she came to understand language is portrayed in The Miracle Worker. Her teacher Anne Sullivan helped deaf and blind Helen to enter into the world of “linguistic reasoning” and ultimately helped her on her path to becoming the first deaf and blind person to earn a bachelor’s degree (79). The scene in The Miracle Worker in which Helen comes to understand the word ‘water’ moves Helen into a “world different from that of animal perception, calling, and signaling”, it is one of signitive intentionality (79).
Signitive intentionality is a “new kind of intending” that “makes these perceived marks into words” (78). It is not only directed toward the reference of the word, but the “same intention establishes some of the marks as a word”. Further, signitive intentionality “establishes a meaning as poart of the word” (81).
In the scene from The Miracle Worker, Helen’s relation to the world changes. When she “drops the pitcher on the slab under the spout” and recognizes that the letters spelled on her palm represent the water and are they themselves a word referring to the …show more content…
Sokowalski observes that, “signifying and picturing, are different from each other” because “taking something as a word is different from taking it as a picture” (82). In signitive intentionality, one’s intention is directed outward toward the “absent object” to which the word is referencing (82)). Pictorial intentional however, “draw the thing near”, they make the thing present in the here and now (82). Further, signitive intentionality “intends the object at one stroke, all at once, as a whole” in the word. Pictorial intentionality on the other hand offers only a “certain perspective” (83). Additionally, pictorial intending is much like “seeing or hearing”, whereas signitive intending is
Helen Keller & Sokolowski’s Phenomenology
Helen Keller’s amazing story of how she came to understand language is portrayed in The Miracle Worker. Her teacher Anne Sullivan helped deaf and blind Helen to enter into the world of “linguistic reasoning” and ultimately helped her on her path to becoming the first deaf and blind person to earn a bachelor’s degree (79). The scene in The Miracle Worker in which Helen comes to understand the word ‘water’ moves Helen into a “world different from that of animal perception, calling, and signaling”, it is one of signitive intentionality (79).
Signitive intentionality is a “new kind of intending” that “makes these perceived marks into words” (78). It is not only directed toward the reference of the word, but the “same intention establishes some of the marks as a word”. Further, signitive intentionality “establishes a meaning as poart of the word” (81).
In the scene from The Miracle Worker, Helen’s relation to the world changes. When she “drops the pitcher on the slab under the spout” and recognizes that the letters spelled on her palm represent the water and are they themselves a word referring to the …show more content…
Sokowalski observes that, “signifying and picturing, are different from each other” because “taking something as a word is different from taking it as a picture” (82). In signitive intentionality, one’s intention is directed outward toward the “absent object” to which the word is referencing (82)). Pictorial intentional however, “draw the thing near”, they make the thing present in the here and now (82). Further, signitive intentionality “intends the object at one stroke, all at once, as a whole” in the word. Pictorial intentionality on the other hand offers only a “certain perspective” (83). Additionally, pictorial intending is much like “seeing or hearing”, whereas signitive intending is