[Xmca-l] Re: Saussure vs Peirce

[Rein Raud]

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


“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> 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                                                
> 
> 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 <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 <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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