[Xmca-l] Re: Saussure vs Peirce
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Fri Mar 15 02:29:50 PDT 2019
I am not a fan of Saussure myself, Arturo, partly because he
established such a very un-Hegelian dichotomy with his
Signifier and Signified. Such a view is fundamentally
incompatible with Hegel's approach. However, you are correct
that as early as 1817 Hegel supported the thesis of the
arbitrariness of the sign, and he regarded sign-systems
which included remnants of representation as underdeveloped,
kind of 'second-rate'.
Apart from that, what Hegel has to say about speech is
mainly in the Subjective Spirit, as I am sure you know. but
it is a pity that Hegel never developed his ideas about
communication in general and speech and writing in
particular into any kind of finished theory.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 15/03/2019 6:27 pm, Arturo Escandon wrote:
> Hi everyone.
>
> I just happen to read this old thread.
>
> It is my impression when I was doing my PhD and tried to
> get around the notion of language and more into the notion
> of speaking (or communication if you will) that De
> Saussure actually was inspired in many ways by Hegel's
> theory of systems when producing his categories of
> langage/langue/parole. Furthermore, it seems than Hegel
> anticipated many Saussurian ideas on the arbitrariness of
> the linguistic sign, its relationship with concepts, and
> writing systems in general.
>
> As you can clearly see when translating Vygotsky's Thought
> and language/Thinking and speaking we struggle with
> Saussurean terminology to convey what that "language" is.
>
> There are many passages of the Cours that match Hegel's
> Encyclopedia.
>
> I could not address all these issues in my thesis and I
> opted for deploying the notion of discourse instead of
> speech. In that way I got rid of the notion of language as
> system comprising all utterances (much or less as all
> commodities form the market). However, I did not solve the
> underlying issue of how abbreviation works in discourse
> (or language).
>
> There are also many ontological problems with Vygotsky's
> notion of interiorization and inner speech if we get rid
> of a Saussurean understanding of language as system or
> what linguists call a segregationist view of language
> (language as a reified object that only makes sense within
> an objectified system).
>
> Best,
>
> Arturo
>
>
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2019 at 02:04, James Ma
> <jamesma320@gmail.com <mailto:jamesma320@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Andy, this sounds rather unwise - I'm afraid your line
> of argument is not entirely tenable.
> I'll get back to you again when I have more time.
> James
>
> */_______________________________________________________/*
>
> /*James Ma *Independent Scholar
> //https://oxford.academia.edu/JamesMa
> /
>
>
> 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 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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