Characters:
Professor Quillibrace
Mr Blottisham
Miss Elowen Stray
Blottisham:
Before we begin, Professor, I’d like to be clear about something. Are we here to discover meaning, or to invent it? Because I don’t see how it can be both.
Quillibrace:
That depends, Mr Blottisham, on what you think is happening when meaning occurs.
Blottisham:
Exactly my point. Something occurs. Which means it must already be there, waiting to be noticed. Otherwise it’s just imagination.
Elowen Stray:
But when you say “already there,” do you mean as meaning? Or just as… something?
Blottisham:
Meaning is meaning, Miss Stray. Either it’s there or it isn’t. We don’t need to make things more complicated than that.
Quillibrace:
We don’t need to. We merely do.
Blottisham:
There you go again. Evasion dressed up as wisdom. You philosophers always say “it depends” when the answer is obvious.
Quillibrace:
Obvious answers are usually answers to different questions.
Elowen Stray:
I think what Mr Blottisham is worried about is that if meaning isn’t discovered, then it’s arbitrary.
Blottisham:
Precisely. If we’re making meaning, then anyone can make anything mean anything. Which leads directly to nonsense. And I for one am opposed to nonsense.
Quillibrace:
A noble stand.
Elowen Stray:
But Professor—if meaning were simply discovered, like a fossil or a coin in the dirt, wouldn’t it be the same for everyone?
Blottisham:
At last, something sensible. Yes. That’s exactly right.
Quillibrace:
And yet it isn’t.
Blottisham:
That’s because some people misunderstand it.
Quillibrace:
An inexhaustible explanation.
Elowen Stray:
What if meaning isn’t found or made?
Blottisham:
Then what is it, Miss Stray? Magically summoned?
Quillibrace:
It might help to stop treating meaning as a thing.
Blottisham:
Ah. There it is. The classic move. “It’s not a thing.” Which is philosopher for “I don’t have to explain it.”
Quillibrace:
On the contrary. It means I have to explain it differently.
Elowen Stray:
Is this where you’d say meaning happens?
Quillibrace:
If I were feeling reckless, yes.
Blottisham:
“Happens” is a weasel word. Rain happens. Accidents happen. Meaning doesn’t just happen. It has to come from somewhere.
Quillibrace:
So does rain.
Blottisham:
That’s meteorology.
Quillibrace:
Indeed. A system that describes conditions under which rain actualises.
Blottisham:
You’re not seriously comparing meaning to weather.
Quillibrace:
Only in the sense that neither accumulates.
Blottisham:
Rubbish. We have records. Texts. Traditions. Libraries. Meaning piles up everywhere you look.
Elowen Stray:
Do those things contain meaning? Or do they just make it possible for meaning to happen again?
Blottisham:
You’re splitting hairs.
Quillibrace:
Only because they’re attached to different heads.
Blottisham:
So now you’re saying meaning only exists when someone is looking at it?
Quillibrace:
I’m saying it only exists as meaning when it is construed.
Blottisham:
Which is exactly what I said. Subjective. Fleeting. No standards. No stability.
Elowen Stray:
But there are standards. They just don’t live in the meaning itself.
Blottisham:
Where do they live then? In the clouds with your rain?
Quillibrace:
In the systems that make certain construals more likely than others.
Blottisham:
Ah yes, systems. Another abstraction. So meaning depends on systems, but isn’t in them, and isn’t in the world, and isn’t in us. Very convenient.
Quillibrace:
Meaning is not homeless, Mr Blottisham. It simply does not own property.
Elowen Stray:
So when meaning happens, it’s like a meeting point? Between what’s possible and what’s noticed?
Quillibrace:
That’s closer.
Blottisham:
Closer to what?
Quillibrace:
To stopping the wrong question.
Blottisham:
Which is?
Quillibrace:
Whether meaning is found or made.
Elowen Stray:
Because that assumes meaning is something that exists before it happens?
Quillibrace:
Precisely.
Blottisham:
Then what do you call everything we’ve already worked out? All the meanings we already have?
Quillibrace:
Traces. Records. Conditions. Invitations.
Blottisham:
You make it sound like meaning has no memory.
Quillibrace:
Meaning remembers nothing.
People do.
Elowen Stray:
And when people remember, meaning can happen again—but differently?
Quillibrace:
Always differently.
Blottisham:
So nothing is ever settled.
Quillibrace:
Only expectations.
Blottisham:
I find that deeply unsatisfying.
Quillibrace:
Meaning is not obliged to satisfy.
(A pause.)
Elowen Stray:
So meaning isn’t found, and it isn’t made.
It’s… encountered?
Quillibrace:
That will do—for now.
Blottisham:
I don’t like it.
Quillibrace:
That, Mr Blottisham, is also a phenomenon.
End of Dialogue I
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