Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

[Mark Vines <vinesm@wholefoods.com>]

la djim. cusku di'e

> I couldn't resist a response to your posting.  Admitted:
> I'm neither a historian of science nor have I actually
> (gasp) _read_ Derrida, but the opportunity to skewer
> overinflation is too tempting a target to pass up.

mi spuda la djim. di'e

Please, skewer away!

> > ... Yet signification is not a property exhibited by
> > signifiers; signification takes place in a kind of
> > dialectic between the sign & the consciousness of the
> > beholder.  Things are not signs in & of themselves;
> > they're only signs when they're read that way.
>
> This statement seems very closely related to Logical
> Positivism.  The sign and its referent are not the same;
> the sign is manipulated within the computing machinery of
> the beholder so the beholder can accomplish its goals
> relative to the referent.  However, to the (limited)
> extent that I know Logical Positivism, I don't think
> there's a big focus on whether signs are signs and have
> particular referents because the user so designates them,
> or for some other reason.

(Aside:  The question of who does the designating is
problematic, but we can assume that each "user" _consents_
to each designation, or at least acquiesces in it.)

No, you're right.  But Derrida & other deconstructionists
make this point in their attack on nihilism, rather than
in a commentary on Logical Positivism.  The nihilists tend
to argue that signification is impossible (or that people
can interpret signs to mean whatever they want, or that
all signs mean the same thing).  Deconstruction says that
signification is not only possible but inescapable, or,
rather, that signification escapes all doubt about what
really exists.

> > In Derrida's words:  "The sign 'is' that ill-named
> > 'thing' which escapes the instituting question of
> > philosophy."
>
> I must have missed a chapter here.  "'is'" (i.e. "is" in
> quotes): I wonder what its meaning (what it signifies)
> might be.

I put "is" & "thing" in scare-quotes; in the original
they're crossed out (written _sous rature_ if I recall
the correct French expression).  The meaning is that a
sign is a sign by virtue of how it's taken rather than
what it "is"; to call the sign a "thing" is to misname it,
since the thing is a sign only if reading makes it so; &
yet we can be _certain_ that signs exist, because we
can doubt or deny or question their existence only
because signification makes doubts & denials & questions
possible.

Since Hume, or maybe even since Kant, doubt about what
really exists has been the "instituting question of
philosophy".  That's exactly what the sign escapes.

> Well, if you're going to analyse mythopoesis, any text
> is equally suitable as grist for your mill.

Agreed.

> In short, the result of deconstructing a scientific
> text is of no interest to a scientist (in his
> professional role).

Agreed.

> In either setting, "hinge" conflicts seem simply
> irrelevant.  For example, metaphor versus metonymy: who
> cares?  You tell a writing student that one or the other
> is more powerful at evoking the desired message for the
> listener, but the "desired message" has value to the
> listener independent of the skill with which it is
> presented, or whether the master chooses one while at
> the same time saying the other is better.  Or am I
> showing my ignorance of philosophy here?

I doubt that you are any more ignorant of philosophy than
I am.  However, the practitioners of deconstruction tend
to find "hinge" conflicts very relevant.  Much more
relevant than speculation about the author's intent, or
about the so-called "originary reading", which refers to
the meaning a text may have had for the people who were
originally intended to read it.

"Opening" a text along such a "hinge" often seems to endow
it with a whole range of unanticipated meanings & hidden
dimensions.  From my own experience, I can say that it
_feels_ like a revelation.  IMO that thrill of revelation
is what keeps deconstructionists coming back for more, in
spite of the hostility & prejudice they have to endure.

Two of Derrida's essays, "Plato's Pharmacy" & "White
Mythology", are especially good examples of the thrill
that can result when the "hinge" method is applied.

> For science, if the majority of people can build a
> Superconducting Super Collider and count hadron jets
> in the same angular distribution as the author, there
> are legitimate questions about what the hadron jets
> _are_, but the purpose of the text has been
> accomplished, and literary criticism of the text, for
> example the analysis of gender roles, may give someone
> enlightment about gender roles but not about hadrons.

Probably not about gender roles either!  Critical theory
_ought_ to be a guide for placing texts where they belong
in the history of ideas, & limiting criticism to whatever
is appropriate for that kind of discourse.  Instead,
critical theory has been twisted into a free-for-all that
supposedly entitles critics to read anything into a text
that they want to read into it.  Which is exactly the
sort of semiotic nihilism that Derrida argues against.
& I strongly suspect that's the sort of lit-crit you
have in mind when you mention gender roles in connection
with particle physics.

(Aside:  Have you read Gregory Benford's _Cosm_ yet?)

> > Admittedly, a vast reservoir of nonsense has been
> > published, & still more uttered, in the name of
> > deconstruction.  But [And's] attempt to label the
> > entire field as worthless is outrageous.
>
> I'll go along with both parts of this statement, if
> we can agree that literary criticism doesn't shed a
> whole lot of light on the relation of the signs to
> their referents, and the relations which the signs say
> are occurring between the referents.  Which, to my
> mind, is the most important aspect of a text.

Deconstructionists call that the "logocentric" meaning
of a text.

Jim, we almost agree, but not quite.  I would say that
the logocentric meaning is the most important aspect
- even the only important aspect - of many texts.  & I
would agree with you that deconstructionists typically
give absurdly short shrift to logocentric meanings.

But I believe there are some texts whose impact upon
human life, society & consciousness cannot be understood
without exploring those hidden dimensions of meaning
that are sometimes revealed by a deconstructive reading.
Deconstruction is not a science; it does not offer the
error-correcting advantages that science offers; it is
not a reliable path to the truth.  However, some of its
findings can be reproduced by those who are willing to
apply its methods; & from time to time, its practitioners
achieve insights that no one else has achieved.

Those insights can be expressed in a language without
destroying the language or rendering it unusable.

co'omi'e markl.