Subject: RE: More Meaning Again
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 10:37:37 -0500




> ----------
> From: 	kjrufo-AT-bellsouth.net[SMTP:kjrufo-AT-bellsouth.net]
> Reply To: 	heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Sent: 	Wednesday, November 11, 1998 6:11 PM
> To: 	heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: 	Re: More Meaning Again
> 
> 
	Hi Ken, thanks for your comments. One of the issues I have not been
able to drive home for myself is the distinction between    language as with
the sign/signifier schema you propose, and Heidegger's version. Several list
members have gone over this from time to time, but I guess I need to keep
hearing it until it drives home.

	More later.

	Michael S.

> Well, I'll offer my views on the subject.  Of course, this being my first
> post
> on thelist, you can feel free to take it with a newbie-endowed grain of
> salt.
> 
> > We think of meaning in two ways: The first way is as an indicator that
> > points away from itself. When I see a stop sign, the sign indicates that
> I
> > stop. Of course this is too simple. It also indicates that I should step
> on
> > the break, and that I should adjust my focus, and that I should shift my
> > awareness to accomodate a change in speed, etc. and so on. So it doesn't
> > ONLY indicate one action. It points to a tapestry of other meanings that
> > point as well (and I would like to loose this view of pointing pretty
> soon).
> >
> > The second way we think of meaning is in terms of "having" something.
> When I
> > see a movie that has great impact on me I say this movie carries great
> > meaning for me. But in this case, perhaps the meaning is still a
> pointing.
> > Here, the pointing is to a Befindlickheit.
> >
> > Where I am going with this is to find the sameness between these two
> ways of
> > thinking about meaning by pointing out that the two "modes" of thinking
> are
> > really the same. And at first, they appear to both be a pointing. At
> first,
> > this is how they look the same...as both being a pointing toward
> > "something". In the first instance, there is a pointing to an action. in
> the
> > second instance, there is a pointing to a "thing" (perhaps a
> nominalization,
> > or verb used as a noun).
> >
> >
> 
> Oddly, I'm working through a similar question in my current graduate
> studies.
> 
> > But then something doesn't quite fit, and that is the pointing thing in
> > general. I'm wondering if meaning can be thought of not as a thing that
> > points, but as a path or an action, or something like that.
> >
> >
> 
> Here's my slant on it:  If language functions as a symbol system that
> "equips
> usfor living," than language serves in a traditional sense as a sign (the
> word)
> that
> is both distinct and connected to the signified (the notion of
> deceleration).
> This
> rather well accepted understanding of language as dual-voiced is what
> allows for
> 
> a plurality of meaning systems from the same terminologies, or to use your
> word choice - the pointing of meaning.  The problem is that the signified
> doesn't
> ever really exist.  The stop sign serves as a potent example.  The sign is
> both
> a
> literal (definitionally) and figurative (linguistically) sign, which
> "points" to
> the notion
> of stopping.  This "stopping" is another sign (and a signified) that
> informs
> the driver to depress the brake, etc, which is in turn a sign and a
> signified.
> The
> ultimate problem becomes that the signified is forever intangible, since
> its
> meaning can always be recast as a sign system.  In effect then, to use one
> of Baudrillard's favorite terms, language becomes a simulacrum, in that
> the ultimate reference of language is not just concealed through the use
> of
> language-as-medium, its lack of existence is concealed as well.  And so,
> meaning,
> in both senses of the word aren't so much as problematic in the notion of
> pointing
> as they are in their notion of meaning.  The use of the term in different
> lights
> is/reflects
> language's ability to speak (be interpreted) as multi-voiced.
> Consequently, it
> seems
> to me that language is both a thing and an action, and that meaning, a
> consensual and
> constituent part of language is both a path through the sign-signifier
> simulacrum
> and a self-constituting element.
> 
> > I still reflecting upon the odd notion that finding the meaning can
> bring
> > about some sort of emotional resolution. When Edinger says that it isn't
> > suffering that is so bad, its meaningless suffering, what is the
> > relationship here between meaning and suffering?
> >
> > Any thoughts?
> >
> 
> The relationship seems semantically artificial, if that makes any sense.
> One
> wonders
> how meaningless can be understood without meaning (language and meaning,
> being
> components of a larger and more complicated simulacrative structure, are
> often
> defined by their boundaries - meaningless is that which has no meaning,
> which
> paradoxially, becomes a meaning).  Suffering has the meaning attached to
> it (and
> in
> it, necessarily); framing the characteristics of suffering through an
> absence of
> 
> meaning is just more wordplay, albeit dramatic (oops, more meaning!) in
> effect.
> 
> > Michael S.
> >
> >      --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> Ken Rufo
> Speech and Communication
> University of Georgia
> 
> 
> 
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> 


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