Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 20:54:30 +0000
Subject: Re: BHA: Voloshinov etc


Tobin/all

Being a 'realist' (in relation to science) is whilst misguided but 
probably understandable, but being anti-psychoanalysis as well as 
anti-(saussurian style) linguistics - quite probably we'd come to 
serious intellectual blows over such reactionary positions...

The statement rather proves the point I was trying to make - to make 
your materialist linguistic theory dependent on a singular marxist 
position, even a mode of analysis, is to guarantee that the 
'linguistics' will fail. To make it dependent on realism, dialectics is 
to reproduce the theoretical black hole I was condemnning Volshinov for. 
Curious that you mention Lacan who does precisely that in his adoption 
of Jakobson's linguistics, creating the unavoidable error of making his 
psychoanalysis dependent on a theoretically questionable science and 
ideologically bound science...

yours laughing...

steve

Tobin Nellhaus wrote:

>Ah, gotcha.  I think the glitch is in what one means by "marxist."  If it
>refers only to Marx's analysis of capitalism, then yes, founding a theory of
>linguistics on that would be, hm, clunky at the *very* best.  If on the
>other hand one understands "marxist" as meaning a mode of analysis (e.g.
>historical materialism, realism, dialectics, etc) without any necessary
>direct connection to economics -- in other words the philosophical
>underpinnings -- then I think a marxist philosophy of language is
>intelligible.  That's the approach that Voloshinov/Bakhtin was taking, I
>believe, as the title of his book indicates; and it's what I usually have in
>mind by "marxist," given that I don't work on economics or political theory.
>
>As for Saussure, there are other reasons than CR or marxism for rejecting
>him, but it's not an issue I can pursue right now (as I have an article due
>in less than a week, eek!).  You might check out the poet and essayist Paul
>Goodman.  FWIW, I have and always have had a visceral antipathy to Saussure,
>and also Lacan and Richard Schechner (who you've probably never heard of,
>and just as well).  But that may be because I have a visceral and quite
>possibly erotic relationship with language.  Saussure will never understand.
>
>Cheers, T.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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