From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:58:29 EST
Subject: heidegger-AT-lists.metamorphosen 2



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In a message dated 21/02/2002 09:13:20 GMT Standard Time,
pennamacoor-AT-enterprise.net writes:


Subj:metamorphosen 2
Date:21/02/2002 09:13:20 GMT Standard Time
From:    pennamacoor-AT-enterprise.net (Michael Pennamacoor)
Sender:    owner-heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Reply-to: heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
To:    heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu




Jud recently on metaphor:

"Metaphor is the employment of other word-symbols which do not necessarily
correspond with the generally agreed idea-symbol equivalence, but is a figure
of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does
not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity which can often throw=20a
new light on a subject and simplify its explanation"

Michael spake thus:

Thus a metaphor is a signifier that substitutes for another signifier whilst
occluding it in referring to the 'original' signified, thus there are two
signifieds, the
'original' (that one could de-signate the 'literal') one missing/absent in
the chain of signifiers.

Yes, you make a good point but I think that often a metaphor goes further
than the mere previously agreed correspondence of a normal signifier and adds
to it in often unusual and interesting ways - "the blue sky" becomes: "The
lark-song-satiated azureness of the heavens" etc which provides more than
simply a plain old adjectival 'blue.'


Michael:

Thus, let us take the term 'figure of speech' (which shall include extended
metaphorical 'figures' such as metonymy, synecdoche, catachresis, oxymoron,
etc): it, itself, is a 'figure of speech' (note the word "figure" here...
manifold significations); what and where is the 'original', the virgin
'literal' signifier here?


Jud:

Etymologically the word figure comes from the Latin figura, figurare, related
to fingere 'fashion'] in the sense of making or creating something I suppose?
 Linguistically it is thought of as a recognized form of rhetorical
expression giving variety, force, etc., especially metaphor or hyperbole. 
>From a strictly grammatical point of it is a permitted deviation from the
usual rules of construction, e.g. ellipsis. My own view is that original
metaphors and newly created figures of speech are markers of creativity in
writing, though nothing is worse that the mindless repetition of such much
abused terms as:  "In the last analysis=E2=80=9D  and "the bottom line is...=E2=80=9D etc.

Michael:
[I am, of course, gently operating within a somewhat ironical mood/trope
here]. What on earth does "literal" mean (in its opposition to "figurative")?
Can a
formulation of the meaning of "literal" be itself literal (or would it needs
be figurative)? Can this difference be articulated without recourse to
metaphorical figures?

Jud:
The meaning of 'literal' can be explained with the words: "Reflecting the
essential or genuine character of something" and you are correct when you say
that it is almost impossible to escape using such metaphors: like
"reflecting" and (even worse) "essential" in one's description.

Michael:
I'd like to say again that language is inescapably metaphoric (in the
extended sense, as above), even in the white virginality of mathematical
proof writing (say,
in the use of "let" in such as: "let x=1", or "therefore" in "therefore n=20is
prime"; and is not proof by 'reductio ad absurdum ' not some form of
mathematical irony?). I am basically disputing the notion that metaphor (etc)
is a pleasant (and informative) 'colouration', 'ornamentation',
'prettification' [themselves painterly, musical and design metaphors], etc,
of language (although it can be in any instance).

Jud:
You defend your position well.  You are correct in one sense and incorrect in
another - for like most things in life, it is a question of balance and
degree.  You are right when you say that language is inescapably metaphoric,
but it all boils down (another deliberately gruesome metaphor) to the amount
and volume and nature of the metaphor we employ. We have all read or listened
to the over-enthusiastic use of metaphor from our more theatrical or
dramaturgically gushing friends - at first it is amusing and entertaining,
then we begin to get bored with it, for (like the repetitious use of swear
words) the material loses its impact and immediacy and becomes a showy
display rather than a colourful and engaging account, and we begin to laugh
at the speaker for the way he speaks, rather than at the subject of which he
speaks.

Jud on being:

"the word [being] is [sic] no more than a syntactical tool that entails or
attributes an action or state to another word or words, and has no state or
modality of its own.

Michael:
(Most?) Signifiers point to signifieds that are other than, differing from,
themselves, (otherwise language could not signify, could not produce meaning,
could not say) concepts (as in "trees", or "this") or things (beings) (as in
"(this) tree" or other signifiers (as in metaphors), etc.

Jud:
But that's just it Michael =E2=80=93 the being word is NOT a signifier in the way
that other signifiers behave =E2=80=93 well certainly not in the way that a=20verb does
for instance =E2=80=93 for its role is to introduce or indicate the descriptional
significational message that the FOLLOWING VERB intends or expresses in
relation to the existential modality of its subject.
 You should think of the BE (is) BEING word as an introducer =E2=80=93 a middleman =E2=80=93
which attributes a certain state or modality to a subject by fingering a verb
as being a modality of the subject.
Apart from buttonholing the verb on behalf of the subject the BEING word
itself doesn't signify anything and its repeated 'message' is always the same
=E2=80=93 it says over and over again in sentence after sentence after sentence:
pointing to the subject with one forefinger and the verb with the other:=20=E2=80=9CIs
or equals a state or modality of=E2=80=A6=E2=80=9D  or   =E2=80=9CX  is acting like or is  in a
state like =C3=A0 this (verb)=E2=80=9D
There only variation and additional information that the BE word delivers is
WHEN this existential modality or state happened, is happening, or will
happen to the subject ,and whether there is one or more subjects (number and
tense)

Michael:
 Only being/"being" is its own signified, being [sic] the basis for the
linguistic difference (between signifier and signified), it [is] difference
itself, this difference that permeates language and linguisticality...

Jud:
'Being' simply means: [something]  =E2=80=9Cexists in a manner of=E2=80=A6=20=E2=80=9D Or more
formally: [something] =E2=80=9Cexists in a state or modality of... =E2=80=9C   So to state
that  [something] exists in a state or modality of existing in a state or
modality =E2=80=9C is meaningless epanaphora or existential circularity.

Michael:
Moreover, Derrida says, writing of imagination in literary art works:

"... notion of an imagination that produces metaphor -- that is, everything
in language except the verb to be -- remains... what certain philosophers
today call a naively utilized operative concept." [Derrida 1978, 'Force and
Signification' in 'Writing and Difference', p7][Derrida's italics rendered
here in red]

Jud:
I am afraid I would need to see the whole passage to get the gist of what
Derrida is saying here =E2=80=93 is that possible?  My comments if I understand what
he is getting at in this fragment, is that metaphor is criticised for (it is
not clear here whether the criticism is Derrida's or 'certain philosophers'
in the way that it is  'naively utilized,' and only the verb BE sic. (Derrida
is WRONG when he uses the term =E2=80=9Cverb to be=E2=80=9D =E2=80=93 the verb is 'BE,' and  'to be'
is merely the infinitive version of one of its conjugations) remains
unsullied from this abuse?  It is not surprising =E2=80=93 for the verb BE never DOES
anything   or says anything, but is simply a  pointer  to sate or modality (
including past =E2=80=93 present =E2=80=93 future) I am speaking metaphorically of course.

Michael
The word "being" (as employed in Heidegger and the metaphysical tradition
{which means the inescapable horizon of all western philosophy, thinking,
science, commonsense, theology, etc, the entire edifice} does not name
anything, does not conceptualise anything, etc., but [is] the very basis for
all naming, conceptualising, labelling, signifying, metaphorising, etc.

Jud:
A rather over-enthusiastic selling-job on BE here Michael =E2=80=93 all that BE does
is to introduce other words and let them do all the work of describing the
existential goings-on of the subjects with which they share the utterance. 
Being is certainly not something tangible that can be found in a leaf (a la
Heidegger) but is simply an indicator pointing to ANOTHER word which provides
the conceptualisation:  =E2=80=9CThe leaf=C3=9F is =C3=A0 green=E2=80=9D or=20if you like =E2=80=9CThe leaf =C3=A0is=C3=A0
green.=E2=80=9D
That is all =E2=80=93 no =E2=80=9Cinescapable horizon of all western philosophy,=E2=80=9D no
=E2=80=9Cthinking, science, commonsense,=E2=80=9D no  =E2=80=9Ctheology, etc=E2=80=9D  - but simply a
pointing to the way things were, or are, or will be, as revealed by the words
it INDICATES (hence analytical INDICANT theory.) So the BE word is an
INDICANT and now you know. ;-)

Egg-nog all reddy,

Jud Evans.




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