Reading Order of Things - Prose of the World
On Mon, 8 Apr 1996, Samuel Lawrence Binkley wrote:
>
> where did all those guys go who were reading Order of Things? did they
> create a separate thread somewhere?
>
Hm. I wondered that too. Maybe I scared them off with my very
subjective contribution (hope not, but I'm still very confused about
subjectivity, and would like to get onto that later). Maybe this is a
very difficult chapter. (He does seem to get into unnecessary detail
about the four similitudes, but maybe that will be important later.)
Christopher (on April 2) brought up the relation between hermeneutics and
semiology in section 2 "Signatures".
This is very tricky, but I think it might be like this.
There is a "real" world whose operation is mysterious (mostly hidden) but
which works according to the similitudes. It is not entirely hidden, we
are given signs of the "nature of things" (eg red means poisonous). How
can we recognise these signs? Well, the "grammar" of similitudes seems
to be innate (are our minds similar to the mind of God?). The actual
meaning of individual signs can be read from their relationship to other
signs - and signs are related by the same similitudes as the underlying
"reality". This is rather like Saussure's relationship of signs to
meaning, except that in Saussure signs are purely conventional, whereas
in the 16th century they were part of the (super?) natural order.
But we "see through a glass darkly", the similitudes among signs
correspond to but are not identical to the underlying reality.
Semiology is the study of the relationships among signs, hermeneutics is
the interpretion of signs to understand the relationships among real
things and events. The patterns in each reinforce the other - each helps
us understand the other, and neither can be understood without the other.
My problem here is, I'm not sure where Foucault gives evidence that the
Renaissance thinkers made this separation between hermeneutics and
semiology - is it just a modern overlay?
And nature? Well, I assume that is the stuff of which (in the next age)
science will be made. The bits we can pick up from practical observation
(again, this doesn't seem to have been clearly separate at the time - was
fixing a plough thought of as a different kind of activity from
performing a fertility ritual). Anyway, the bits that don't fit, where
the signs don't exactly predict (but maybe we read them wrong?) might be
"nature" - either random events, or the inevitable result of the
imperfection of the fit between signs and reality (does this inperfection
come from original sin, the tower of Babel?).
Again, I'm not sure what the whole project is about. Are we saying "If
they knew how to use the terms we use now, this is how they would have
described the way they thought"? Or are we just using the historical
texts to create some imaginary space on which we can exercise our
post-modern minds? Foucault says he's not doing "history of ideas" but
what is he doing?
More confused and more delighted than ever
Jim
On Mon, 8 Apr 1996, Samuel Lawrence Binkley wrote:
>
> where did all those guys go who were reading Order of Things? did they
> create a separate thread somewhere?
>
Hm. I wondered that too. Maybe I scared them off with my very
subjective contribution (hope not, but I'm still very confused about
subjectivity, and would like to get onto that later). Maybe this is a
very difficult chapter. (He does seem to get into unnecessary detail
about the four similitudes, but maybe that will be important later.)
Christopher (on April 2) brought up the relation between hermeneutics and
semiology in section 2 "Signatures".
This is very tricky, but I think it might be like this.
There is a "real" world whose operation is mysterious (mostly hidden) but
which works according to the similitudes. It is not entirely hidden, we
are given signs of the "nature of things" (eg red means poisonous). How
can we recognise these signs? Well, the "grammar" of similitudes seems
to be innate (are our minds similar to the mind of God?). The actual
meaning of individual signs can be read from their relationship to other
signs - and signs are related by the same similitudes as the underlying
"reality". This is rather like Saussure's relationship of signs to
meaning, except that in Saussure signs are purely conventional, whereas
in the 16th century they were part of the (super?) natural order.
But we "see through a glass darkly", the similitudes among signs
correspond to but are not identical to the underlying reality.
Semiology is the study of the relationships among signs, hermeneutics is
the interpretion of signs to understand the relationships among real
things and events. The patterns in each reinforce the other - each helps
us understand the other, and neither can be understood without the other.
My problem here is, I'm not sure where Foucault gives evidence that the
Renaissance thinkers made this separation between hermeneutics and
semiology - is it just a modern overlay?
And nature? Well, I assume that is the stuff of which (in the next age)
science will be made. The bits we can pick up from practical observation
(again, this doesn't seem to have been clearly separate at the time - was
fixing a plough thought of as a different kind of activity from
performing a fertility ritual). Anyway, the bits that don't fit, where
the signs don't exactly predict (but maybe we read them wrong?) might be
"nature" - either random events, or the inevitable result of the
imperfection of the fit between signs and reality (does this inperfection
come from original sin, the tower of Babel?).
Again, I'm not sure what the whole project is about. Are we saying "If
they knew how to use the terms we use now, this is how they would have
described the way they thought"? Or are we just using the historical
texts to create some imaginary space on which we can exercise our
post-modern minds? Foucault says he's not doing "history of ideas" but
what is he doing?
More confused and more delighted than ever
Jim