[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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