From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2005 - 17:21:03 GMT
Welcome Max,
At 12:52 PM 2/17/2005, you wrote:
>I have come to understand language as being 'material' in quality; that
>is, language always having a material end. Similarly, I feel that language
>is a force.
As per language being material, I wholeheartedly agree. Appropriating a
social semiotic allows re-action back upon "the world", evidenced by the
material artifacts and mediational means we create/employ (which then
become latched and re-appropriated). Vygotsky and Luria (and later
cultural-historical thinkers) have opened up this way of thinking about
language (themselves influenced by Marx).
Can you explain what you mean by "force", and how that differs from saying
language is material in quality? I'm not sure I follow that.
>This is easily seen in politics but relevant always. Perhaps all
>understanding has material consequences, though I am not sure. The idea of
>"God" alone has affected the world in tremendous material ways. Would this
>idea about the nature of language be consistent with the idea of DQ?
I certainly think so. Pirsig, of course, doesn't really discuss language
per se, but I think his thoughts on it (re: the analytic knife, figure in
the middle, relation of Quality with pre-language...) supports this
position (or at the least, doesn't contradict it).
>One of my favorite quotes of Pirsig's is: "Once the Good has been
>'contained' as a dialectical idea it is no trouble for another philosopher
>to come along and show by dialectical methods that "grete," the Good, can
>be more advantageously demoted to a lower position within a 'true' order
>of things, more 'compatible' with the inner workings of dialectic." I
>believe that this ability of discourse to affect rhetorical understanding
>can not help but influence the material world.
Yep, this is another area where you could use Pirsig to support the notion
that Quality is pre-semiotic "experience", and that he was aware that even
the MOQ is an attempt to "contain the Good". The genius of the sophists was
to say that "it's an analogy", as the only way to talk about the Good,
Quality, Buddha, whatever this pre-semiotic experience is.
Certainly too, the "frame" provided by semiosis (call it "metaphysics")
structures our material activity in the world. This was the problem Pirsig
describes in ZMM, a problem I could alternatively (but in full agreement
with Pirsig) describe as the result of a semiotic system (SOM) structuring
physical activity (technological production) in a way that many people had
a vague awareness (pre-semiotic "reaction") of being bad (low-quality), but
had no way of expressing (within the semiotic system) and so blamed
technology (material instantiations of physical activity) when the solution
was to enlarge our metaphysics (semiotic system) to try to include some
recognition of Quality (MOQ).
>This would, in my mind, be an example of where language is dynamic.
>However, in this way, a word, once defined discursively, would seem to
>loose some of its dynamic quality as it becomes static and restricted to
>the meaning that seeks to define it.
In this way, agreeing with what you say, I see semiosis as a dialectic
(with a nod to the redundancy inherent in that statement). That is, through
the process of appropriation/activity/re-appropriation/re-activity/etc. we
are able to move forward (Dynamic) and provide latches (static) to preserve
this movement. But, what has to be included is that language itself is not
Dynamic, it is our ability to respond pre-semiotically to DQ, and then to
re-represent this experience to some degree in a social semiotic (which is
then acted upon by ourselves and others) that allows for Dynamic movement.
>This cannot be helped and is a flaw of language. By nature, a noun is a
>static idea. To define kills the dynamic quality of language by reducing
>it to static qualities.
Almost agree, I'd say "to define kills the dynamic quality of experience by
reducing it to static qualities".
> And yet, language does have force, not because of its restrictive nature
> but because of its dynamic quality.
Here I think I disagree. The evolving nature of the semiotic system is not
a function of the system, but of a pre-semiotic response being brought into
the system, appropriated and negotiated within the system, and then acted
upon.
But again, don't think I am being overly damning of language. Without it,
we would have no ability to latch our evolutions and would be forever
caught in whatever pre-semiotic (or non-semiotic) life our distant
ancestors had millions of years ago (although writers such as Tomasello
have argued that rudimentary semiosis (or "mediation") is the causal
"split" between humans and pre-humans 8 million years ago, and so "humans"
by definition are "semiotic".)
> I've heard that icons used by oriental languages are 'images,' not of
> static realities, but of ideas in motion with a before and an after. This
> idea helps me understand the dynamic nature of language as not static but
> in motion and dynamic. I was just wondering what you all had to think
> about this take on language and understanding. I try to keep my ideas
> from becoming static but in a way "becoming."
Hmm.. yeah, to restate, I'd say that language does not have a dynamic
nature, but the interplay of pre-semiosis and semiosis allows for evolution
of semiosis to occur. In this sense, language seems to be evolutionary, but
the impetus is not within the system of language itself, but is a function
of pre-semiotic experience being brought into the language. We negotiate
semiotic understandings socially, to be sure, but those negotiations are
rooted in our primary responses to DQ, and our reformulations of those
experiences in language.
I hope this makes sense, I'm still in the process of thinking this out myself.
Arlo
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