Subject: FW: More Meaning Again
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:12:07 -0500



I was hoping that someone on the list (Michael? Henry?) could respond to
Ken's posting here. It once again pushes on my core isssue with Heidegger's
view of language, signs, signifier, meaning, etc.

Michael Staples

> ----------
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> Michael Staples wrote:
> 
> > Greg,
> >
> > Ok, follow me here for a minute. I would like to recap my impressions of
> > "Meaning" and perhaps you (or anyone) can comment.
> >
> 
> 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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