[Xmca-l] Re: Saussure vs Peirce
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Tue Jan 1 14:51:32 PST 2019
It is clearly wrong to say that we can't study language
objectively because we exist and think in it - in speech and
writing, language is objective and actual, so we can also
observe it. But to study language objectively, from
"outside," requires the student to acquire a certain
distance from it. Teaching grammar is one way of achieving
that, even writing too, I guess, and anyone who learns a
second language has a point from which to view their first
language. Thus we can learn that "Je ne sais pas" is not
necessarily a double negative. But is the interviewer who
asks an artist to explain their painting failing to stand
outside language to see that there is something else. Like
the psychologists who ask subjects questions and take the
answer to be what the person "really" thought. It's the old
problem of Kant's supposed "thing-in-itself" beyond
experience which (in my opinion) Hegel so thoroughly debunked
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 2/01/2019 7:46 am, David Kellogg wrote:
> Happy new year to all, especially to all us happy pigs
> born in a pig year.
>
> Yes, "absurd" is too strong: it is possible to construct a
> context in which "I think" isn't a grammatical metaphor
> for "may", "should", or "it is possible". But of course
> the whole post was a semantic metaphor for James'
> statement that you cannot study language objectively and
> use it at the same time.
>
> And semantics is the weak point of Saussure. The problem
> is that there isn't anything "arbitraire" or conventional
> about semantics: to say that semantics is arbitrary is
> essentially to say that thinking is arbitrary: that there
> is no rational reason why we think of time as tense and
> entity as number. It's not just that we can't think any
> other way; it's that we have to grow crops and teach
> children in real time, and we have to gather food and cook
> it in real numbers.
>
> Language is arbitrary (i.e. "subjective") at only one
> point: phonetics. But even with phonetics (paradoxically
> the easiest to measure objectively) you have to deal with
> the fact that humans make a finite number of sounds, and
> only a small subset of these are maximally
> distinguishable at a distance. That's why (another
> paradox) at the very time that Saussure was developing a
> purely idealist, subjectivist study of language, teachers
> were creating the international phonetic alphabet we still
> use today. It's a menu, and menus suggest some element of
> choice. But choices can be constrained, and contraints are
> always motivated.
>
> Having twelve months and three hundred and sixty five days
> a year only seems "arbitrary" when you are not a farmer.If
> you were born in the pig year (as I was) this is a
> particularly auspicious year, particularly if you are
> completing your fifth complete cycle of twelve years (as I
> am). But the reason why five cycles of twelve years is
> considered particularly auspicious is no more arbitrary
> than the choice of the pig to name the year: it's a
> likespan of sixty years, which in Confucian times was
> considered just about ideal.
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New in /Language and Literature/, co-authored with Fang Li:
> Mountains in labour: Eliot’s ‘Atrocities’ and Woolf’s
> alternatives
> Show all authors
>
> https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947018805660
> <https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963947018805660>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 2:45 PM Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee
> <mailto:rein.raud@tlu.ee>> wrote:
>
> Happy New Year, David,
>
> Why do you say that (a) is absurd? Let us assume that
> this is what a scholar tells herself after a long
> internal thought-chain, weighing the pros and cons of
> a certain argument about how to study the human body,
> finally arriving at an unexpected conclusion, perhaps
> persuaded by someone else’s work. And at this point
> she says to herself “Hey, come on, I don't really
> think we can study the human body objectively, do I?”
>
> “Thinking something” (endorsing a particular claim)
> and “thinking” (entertaining certain mental processes)
> are not the same thing, even though conflated in the
> English word “think”. But in the first case you can
> substitute it with some synonyms (“reckon”, for
> example), while in others you cannot. You ask “can you
> write "I don't think" without thinking?” but you
> probably wouldn’t ask “can you write "I don't reckon"
> without reckoning?”
>
> Best wishes for 2019 to the whole community,
>
> Rein
>
> **********************************************
> Rein Raud
> Professor of Asian and Cultural Studies, Tallinn
> University
> Uus-Sadama 5, Tallinn 10120 Estonia
> www.reinraud.com <http://www.reinraud.com>
>
>
> “Meaning in Action: Outline of an Integral Theory of
> Culture”(Polity 2016)
> <http://politybooks.com/a-new-look-at-culture-as-such/>
> “Practices of Selfhood” (with Zygmunt Bauman, Polity
> 2015)
> <http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745690162>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On 1 Jan 2019, at 07:29, David Kellogg
>> <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Suppose I say something like this:
>>
>> "I don't think we can study the human body
>> objectively because we are already users of bodies
>> when studying them, i.e. we must remain insiders of
>> our bodies in order to study them, plus the fact that
>> we have the will to embodiment, so to speak."
>>
>> I might be comfortable with a statement like this if
>> I read through it quickly and I don't think about it
>> for too long, provided I am in good health and don't
>> require a doctor (If I fall seriously ill and I go to
>> a doctor, and receive a statement like this, I will
>> probably want a second opinion).
>>
>> But alas, I am arrested by the first three words.
>> What does it mean to say "I don't think"? Can you
>> write "I don't think" without thinking? Is this an
>> instance of aphophasis, like "not to mention"?
>>
>> Because I do study language--and study it
>> objectively--I know that "i don't think" is an
>> interpersonal metaphor: it's a modal, a statement of
>> probability, like the expression "cannot" (which is
>> also a contradiction, when you think about it,
>> because there isn't any such thing as negative
>> probability).
>>
>> This is easy to prove. You just add a tag:
>>
>> a) "I don't think we can study the human body
>> objectively, do I?"
>> b) "I don't think we can study the human body
>> objectively, can we?"
>>
>> It should be obvious that a) is absurd, and b) is
>> what is meant. But isn't that an objective test? Or
>> do you just mean that the phenomena of language don't
>> appear under a microscope?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>>
>> New in /Language and Literature/, co-authored with
>> Fang Li:
>> Mountains in labour: Eliot’s ‘Atrocities’ and Woolf’s
>> alternatives
>> Show all authors
>>
>> https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947018805660
>> <https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963947018805660>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 1, 2019 at 4:52 AM James Ma
>> <jamesma320@gmail.com <mailto:jamesma320@gmail.com>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Andy, here're my thoughts with respect to your
>> message:
>>
>> I think "default", as a state of the human mind,
>> is intuitive and /a posteriori/ rather than of
>> something we get hung up on deliberately or
>> voluntarily. This state of mind is also
>> multifaceted, depending on the context in which
>> we find ourselves. Perhaps there might be a
>> prototype of default that is somehow intrinsic,
>> but I'm not sure about that.
>>
>> Yes, Saussure's structuralism is profoundly
>> influential, without which post-Saussurean
>> thought, including post-structuralism, wouldn't
>> have existed. Seemingly, none of these theorists
>> could have worked out their ideas without the
>> inspiration and challenge of Saussure. Take for
>> example the Russian linguist Jakobson, which I
>> think would suffice (never mind those Francophone
>> geniuses you might have referred to!). Jakobson
>> extended and modified Saussure's signs, using
>> communicative functions as the object of
>> linguistic studies (instead of standardised rules
>> of a given language, i.e. /langue/ in Saussure's
>> terms). He replaced langue with "code" to denote
>> the goal-directedness of communicative functions.
>> Each of the codes was thus associated with its
>> own langue as a larger system.
>>
>> It seems to me that Saussure's semiology is not
>> simply dualistic. There's more to it, e.g. the
>> system of signification bridging between a
>> concept (signified) and a sound image
>> (signifier). Strictly speaking, the system of
>> signification is not concerned with language but
>> linguistics within which language lends itself
>> to scrutiny and related concepts become valid.
>> From Jakobson's viewpoint, this system is more
>> than a normalised collective norm; it contains
>> personal meanings not necessarily compatible with
>> that norm. Saussure would say this norm is the
>> /parole/ that involves an individual's preference
>> and creativity. I find Jakobson's code quite
>> liberating - it helps explain the workings of
>> Chinese dialects (different to dialects within
>> the British English), e.g. the grammatical
>> structure of Shanghainese, which is in many
>> aspects at variance with Mandarin (the official
>> language or predominant dialect).
>>
>> By the way, I don't think we can study a language
>> objectively because we are already users of that
>> language when studying it, i.e. we must remain
>> insiders of that language in order to study it,
>> plus the fact that we have the will to meaning,
>> so to speak.
>>
>> James
>> */_______________________________________________________/*
>>
>> /*James Ma *Independent Scholar
>> //https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
>> /
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 21 Dec 2018 at 03:03, Andy Blunden
>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Getting to your first topic, now, James ...
>>
>> I think it is inescapable for any of us, in
>> everyday interactions, to "default" to the
>> Saussurian way of seeing things, that is to
>> say, signs as pointing to objects, in a
>> structure of differences, abstracted from
>> historical development. The structural view
>> always gives us certain insights which can be
>> invisible otherwise. But like a lot of
>> things, in making this point, Saussure set up
>> this dichotomy with himself on one side and
>> condemned half a century of his followers in
>> Structuralism to a one-sided view of the
>> world ... which made the poststructuralists
>> look like geniuses of course, when they
>> stepped outside this cage
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>
>> On 21/12/2018 7:56 am, James Ma wrote:
>>>
>>> Andy, thank you for your message. Just to
>>> make a few brief points, linking with some
>>> of your comments:
>>>
>>>
>>> First, I have a default sense of signs based
>>> on Saussurean linguistics (semiology);
>>> however, I don't think I "strangely leap
>>> from Peirce's semiotics to Saussure's
>>> semiology". When I read Peirce and Vygotsky
>>> on signs, I often have a Saussurean imagery
>>> present in my mind. As I see it, Saussurean
>>> semiology is foundational to all language
>>> studies, such as the evolution of language
>>> in terms of e.g. semantic drift and
>>> narrowing. Speaking more broadly, in my
>>> view, both synchronic and diachronic
>>> approach to language have relevance for
>>> CHAT. Above all, /a priori /hermeneutic
>>> methodology can benefit further development
>>> of semiotic methodology within CHAT, helping
>>> us to come to grips with what Max Fisch, the
>>> key Peircean exponent, referred to as "the
>>> most essential point", i.e. the tripartite
>>> of thought as semiosis, namely
>>> sign-interpretation or sign action. For
>>> example, how sign action might be implicated
>>> in culture and consciousness.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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