File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 71


Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 13:23:16 -0500
From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: "Deconstruction"


Bill,
	With the usual disclaimers, here's a few, hopefully helpful, comments.
	Derrida would say that the very notion of meaning must be understood in terms
of the relation between a signifier (viz. word, sign, etc.) and what is
signified by that signifier (the meaning).  When we speak of the meaning of 'x'
we assume that this relationship is established -- there is in this way of
speaking a certain finality  that is presumed -- a 'done' deal, a fait accompli,
and all we have to do is express it, state it, etc.  
	Here you find the connection between meaning and truth -- the correspondence
theory of truth (the most popular one these days) says that truth is the
correspondence of an idea (or one might say a proposition that one has in mind)
and a state of affairs.  Presumed in this that the two relata -- eidetic
proposition and real-world thing -- are present there to be correlated.  The
core ideas here is that the correspondence theory of truth and the word-meaning
theory of language think of these as thought they were closed 'system-units',
fundamentally self-sufficient and avaliable for their final determination. 
Typically when one arrives at this final determination, we say we have "the
meaning" of 'x' or have grasped 'the truth' of 'x'. 
	Derrida doesn't deny that there is a signifier-signified relation, but he does
deny that the signified is a 'being of a different order' than the signified, as
it is usually conceived, namely, as something to which we have an
'extra-lingual' access, as, for instance, phenomenology says we have in
'intuition.'  For this reason, rather than the signifier coming to rest in a
meaning, which is of a different order that the word/signifier, the it leads to
another signifier and to another without finality or end.  
this means that meanings may be 'dressed up' to look like good ol' Meanings
(even if petite ones), but STRICTLY SPEAKING there are, in fact, no such things
to be found.  So, 'Meaning' certainly is gone, and 'meaning' is now no longer
the 'answer' it once posed as being, but is a temporary 'way-station'.
	'Truth' is perhaps more difficult.  But let me suggest that there are several
conceptions of truth -- the correpondence theory, the coherence theory, and the
alethetic theory.  Derrida would, for reasons similar to his critique of
meaning, criticize the first two (their just too idealistic!), and would hold,
in a Heideggerian manner, to the latter.  He certainly doesn't want to say that
you can say just anything about anything, but the reason for that is not to be
based on one of the first two theories of truth, but on the notion that the text
severed from its disclosive and communicable character would be not a text, nor
even a occult sign, but a 'non-experience' of sorts.  (The latter needs more
thought, but I'm rushed.)
	Perhaps the 'classic' text of Derrida on this, that is intelligible (more or
less) to those who have some familiarity with, for example, Serle or Austin, is
"Signature, Event, Context" or "Structure, Sign and Play in the Human Sciences."

Regards,
Reg
	

William Ball wrote:
> 
> Please, in non-derridean terms, explain the
> difference between "meaning" and "Meaning."
> 
> Is it the same as "truth" and "truths", or
> "Truth," and "TRUTH" ?
> 
> If so, don't bother. This rubbish keeps coming
> back like a bad dinner.
> 
> Bill Ball
> 
> WILLIAM BALL, Professor of Humanities
> Franklin Pierce College
> ballw-AT-rindge.fpc.edu
> 
>       "Wisdom is what's left when
>        you forget all the facts."
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


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