Re: [xmca] Re: The Fox and the Crow

[Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>]

I think it relates more to the question of magical thinking vs. rational
strategy in the use of speech to get things to happen.

In Austin's terminology, I think it's not so much illocutionary force as
perlocutionary effect which is in question here. Though the latter depends
on the former. I can flatter my vacuum cleaner or my souffle, and I think
it still counts as flattery, but somehow the desired effects materialize
much less often than when I flatter my housecleaner or the chef. Somewhere
in between lie the dog, the cat, the android ...

For the child, and the child in all of us, the domain of what can be
affected by words is an empirical issue. I can give a voice command to my
iphone or my computer (because the designers are trying to bring magic into
the world again?), but flattery probably won't do much good. Yet.

The (updated) traditional argument is that it's primitive (childlike)
"magical" thinking to believe that words (i.e. meanings) can affect
inanimate nature in the same way they do people. There are a lot of flawed
assumptions, I think, in this view. It draws too categorical a distinction
between meaning-responders and non-responders (biosemiotics has a lot to
say about this), and it takes too "primitive" a view of material causality
that separates it too radically from meaning (the philosophy of quantum
measurement pretty much choked to death on this issue).

How IS a raven like a writing desk? :-)

JAY.



On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 7:54 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Clever poem by K&K (wink). How does it relate to Austin's idea of
> illocutionary force?
> mike
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:03 PM, kellogg <kellogg59@hanmail.net> wrote:
>
> >   I've been chewing over Greg's rather brilliant comment that Austin's
> > idea about illocutionary force is basically magical. I would say it is
> less
> > a folk view of speech than a child's view, Greg; speech is background
> noise
> > for gettin' stuff done.
> >
> >
> >
> > Geertz says--you know, in the opening essay in 'The Interpretation of
> > Culture' where he talks about 'thick description' and that Maghrebi sheep
> > trader with the improbable name of Cohen--that our objective descriptions
> > of 'gettin' stuff done' very often cannot discern the wink in the blink.
> >
> >
> >
> > Lately I've been translating those Krylov fables that Vygotsky talks
> about
> > so much in "Psychology of Art" into English. It turns out they are really
> > very winky and not very blinky. Here, for example, is what I've got for
> the
> > Fox and the Crow:
> >
> > **
> >
> > *Folks say foxy talk is bad*
> >
> > *Happy words can make us sad.*
> >
> > *Do we really hate them so? *
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *Words are kindly. Words are smart.*
> >
> > *But the gut speaks through the heart.*
> >
> > *Hearts will sing...and heads will know.  *
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *Look! A crow sees chunks of cheese.*
> >
> > *So she takes them to the trees.*
> >
> > *And she sits there with her treat.*
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *See! A fox can smell the cheese.*
> >
> > *Now he’s coming through the trees.*
> >
> > *There’s the crow, about to eat.*
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *Foxy sees. And Foxy speaks.*
> >
> > *“Such black feathers! Such white cheeks!*
> >
> > *What a lovely pair of wings!”*
> >
> > * *
> >
> > *“What red lips and what a beak!*
> >
> > *If I wait here, she will speak. *
> >
> > *I can’t wait until she sings!”*
> >
> > * *
> >
> > Now this crow is not so dumb
> >
> > But she’s lonely. And he’s come
> >
> > All this way to sit and hear.
> >
> >
> >
> > So she smiles. And she caws.
> >
> > Cheese falls into Foxy’s jaws--
> >
> > Cheese and Foxy disappear.
> >
> >
> >
> > Now, I admit, I've taken a few liberties with Krylov--his raven is not
> > quite the half believing, half knowing female that my crow is. But a nod
> is
> > as good as a wink (to a blind horse).
> >
> >
> >
> > David Kellogg
> >
> > Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >
> >
> >
> > <kellogg59@hanmail.net>
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-- 
Jay Lemke
Senior Research Scientist
Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
Adjunct Full Professor, Department of Communication
University of California - San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, California 92093-0506

New Website: www.jaylemke.com

Professor (Adjunct status 2011-2012)
School of Education
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Professor Emeritus
City University of New York
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