[Xmca-l] Re: Language, mind and objectivity
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Fri Jan 25 07:33:57 PST 2019
What you say about language, James, is equally true of
History, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Social Theory,
Philosophy ... and perception, is it not?
andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 26/01/2019 2:23 am, James Ma wrote:
> Hello Fellows,
>
> I'd like to resume early discussion on language, music and
> philosophy with a separate header to address the
> intersection of language, mind and objectivity.
>
> I now start by perusing Andy's message below. As it
> stands, his counterargument to mine is a little sloppy
> and, more to the point, barely scratches the surface. My
> argument centres on a position that there is no way to
> talk about language without using language. Any language
> is thus to be scrutinised through the medium of itself (or
> another language). In doing so, one can't escape from
> being insider of that language. I elaborate my position as
> below, which might serve as pointers for discussion or
> reflection:
>
> First, language faculty reduces to mind. In studying the
> mind, one needs to attend to the use of mind in two
> different senses: a mind as the object (that is being
> studied) and a mind as the subject (that is doing the study).
>
> Second, to understand how mind functions in the world, it
> is necessary to bring perception into focus. It seems to
> be a rather naive realistic view that "in speech and
> writing, language is objective and actual, so we can also
> observe it". This doesn't entirely qualify as a case of
> perceptual recognition in that it latches on sense-data
> out of which one makes inference, without taking into
> consideration an interaction of three relations in
> perception, i.e. sense-data, the object behind sense-data,
> and the subject (observer). There seems to be a missing
> subjective angle from which the object is viewed.
> Moreover, inference processing is not simply conscious or
> deliberate; it also sets free implicit, involuntary or
> even irrational dispositions of the mind. In short,
> perception is interpretative and subjective because it is
> participatory in nature. I believe that all claims to
> knowledge answer in the end to perception. Taking for
> example language teaching, it involves a human being
> working with another human being, in which case you have
> to consider the effect of consciousness and
> intersubjectivity. There is no thought-free perception or
> perception-free thought - what you get in the mind is not
> the same as what you perceive!
>
> Third, writing, which has the life of its own, can't be
> analysed without being impinged by the observer's own
> perception. Recent research in TESOL emphasises the role
> of learner identity in second language acquisition.
>
> Perhaps we should think that the world is already the best
> representation of itself, to which human beings have
> limited access. I found Thomas Nagel's explanation of
> objectivity an eye-opener and a mind-liberator!
>
> James
> /
> /
>
>
> On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 at 22:54, Andy Blunden
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
> 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 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
>>> /
>>>
>>>
>>
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