>
>ELEPHANT TO JON:
>
> > ELEPHANT:
> > Yes, I do think language precedes the world of particular objects - that
> > would be one good way of identifying me as a "Platonist" - although all
>that
> > this thesis so far amounts to is that *something* of language precedes
>all
> > the world, and what this *something* is, I haven't yet said.
> >
I'm sure you could hold some sort of view like this without being a
Platonist as such (unless you have a very, very broad definition of
Platonism). Structuralists, eg., following Saussure have traditonally that
language is a self-enclosed system without positive terms. Ie. each
individual term within the system is negatively derived from its difference
to all the other terms. Since the "meaning" of any term derives from the
meaning of every term, and is thus not referential in the traditional sense,
a structuralist could argue that language - or the structure of
differentiation that permits language - precedes the world of particular
objects.
>Actually I think that the fact that it is hard to
>say anything positive about *what* it is may, in this case, be a vital
>clue.
>
Or you could be a Derridean post-structuralist. Not only is language
self-enclosed and allows through its internal structure the modelling of a
world of particular objects, but now the particular objects themselves are "
always already" part of the language. Now everything is difference, and you
are right to have nothing positive to say about what it is of language that
pre-exists particular objects, because there is nothing positive to say
about difference. It differs from itself and has no content. It eludes and
makes possible by its non-presence the formative question "What is ....?"
Dynamic Quality = the endless play of difference.
Read 'Of Grammatology.' Or, my personal advice, don't bother. Just be a
Platonist- it's easier.
Lynch.
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