Log24

Hermes and Folded Time

Yesterday’s entry on painter Ward Jackson and the philosopher Gadamer involved what is called hermeneutics, or the art of interpretation.  Gadamer was a leader in this field.  The following passage perhaps belabors the obvious, but it puts hermeneutics clearly in context.

From Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginners:

“The ‘tightness’ of semiotic codes themselves varies from the rule-bound closure of logical codes (such as computer codes) to the interpretative looseness of poetic codes. Pierre Guiraud notes that ‘signification is more or less codified,‘ and that some systems are so ‘open’ that they ‘scarcely merit the designation ‘code’ but are merely systems of “hermeneutic” interpretation’ (*Guiraud 1975, 24). Guiraud makes the distinction that a code is ‘a system of explicit social conventions’ whilst ‘a hermeneutics’ is ‘a system of implicit, latent and purely contingent signs,’ adding that ‘it is not that the latter are neither conventional nor social, but they are so in a looser, more obscure and often unconscious way’ (*ibid., 41). His claim that (formal) codes are ‘explicit’ seems untenable since few codes would be likely to be widely regarded as wholly explicit. He refers to two ‘levels of signification,’ but it may be more productive to refer to a descriptive spectrum based on relative explicitness, with technical codes veering towards one pole and interpretative practices veering towards the other. At one end of the spectrum are what Guiraud refers to as ‘explicit, socialized codes in which the meaning is a datum of the message as a result of a formal convention between participants’ (*ibid., 43-4). In such cases, he argues, ‘the code of a message is explicitly given by the sender’ (*ibid., 65). At the other end of the spectrum are ‘the individual and more or less implicit hermeneutics in which meaning is the result of an interpretation on the part of the receiver’ (*ibid., 43-4). Guiraud refers to interpretative practices as more ‘poetic,’ being ‘engendered by the receiver using a system or systems of implicit interpretation which, by virtue of usage, are more or less socialized and conventionalized’ (*ibid., 41). Later he adds that ‘a hermeneutics is a grid supplied by the receiver; a philosophical, aesthetic, or cultural grid which he applies to the text’ (*ibid., 65).”

* Pierre Guiraud, Semiology (trans. George Gross), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975

Related material:

From Michalinos Zembylas on Michel Serres:

“Serres’ use of Hermes is reminiscent of hermeneutics. The word derives from Hermes and implies that the idea of hermeneutics as a theory of interpretation (and consequently of communication) is necessary when there is a possibility for misunderstanding. Hermes translated the ‘word of Gods’; an interpreter translates the written text, and a teacher ‘translates’ the literature….  Understanding then is aided by the mediation of a hermeneut…. According to Gadamer (1975), the pleasure such understanding elicits is the joy of knowledge (which does not operate as an enchantment but as a kind of transformation). It is worth exploring this idea a bit more since there are interesting connections with Serres’ work.”

There is also an interesting connection with Guiraud’s work.  As quoted above, Guiraud wrote that

“…a hermeneutics is a grid supplied by the receiver; a philosophical, aesthetic, or cultural grid which he applies to the text.”

Serres describes Hermes as passing through “folded time.”  Precisely how time can be folded into a grid is the subject of my note The Grid of Time, which gives the context for the Serres phrase “folded time.”

For more on hermeneutics and Gadamer’s “joy of knowledge,” see Ian Lee in The Third Word War on “understanding the J.O.K.E.” (the Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia).

Orwell’s question, according to
an admirer of leftist Noam Chomsky:

“When so much of the BS is right out in the open,
why is it that we know so little about it?
Why don’t we see what’s right in front of our eyes?”

Oscar

Deep Chomsky: Lying, Truth-Telling, and the Social Order

Michael  Moore

“First of all, I’d like to thank the Academy….”
— Quotation attributed to Plato

The New Yorker of March 31, 2003, discusses leftist academic Noam Chomsky.  The online edition provides a web page listing pro-Chomsky links.

Chomsky’s influence is based in part on the popularity of his half-baked theories on linguistics, starting in the 1950’s with “deep structure” and “transformational,” or “generative,” grammar.

Chomsky has abandoned many of his previous ideas and currently touts what he calls The Minimalist Program.

For some background on Chomsky’s recent linguistic notions, see the expository essay “Syntactic Theory,” by Elly van Gelderen of the Arizona State University English Department.  Van Gelderen lists her leftist political agenda on her “Other Interests” page.  Her department may serve as an example of how leftists have converted many English departments in American universities to propaganda factories.

Some attacks on Chomsky’s scholarship:

The Emperor’s New Linguistics

The New Grammarians’ Funeral

Beyond Chomsky

Could Chomsky Be Wrong? 

Forty-four Reasons Why the Chomskians Are Mistaken

Call for Papers, Chomsky 2003

Chomsky’s (Mis)Understanding of Human Thinking

Anatomy of a Revolution… Chomsky in 1962

…Linguistic Theory: The Rationality of Noam Chomsky

A Bibliography

Some attacks on Chomsky’s propaganda:

LeftWatch.com Chomsky page

Destructive Generation excerpt

The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky

Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers

Chomsky and Plato’s Diamond

Like another purveyor of leftist nonsense, Jacques Derrida, Chomsky is fond of citing Plato as a precedent.  In particular, what Chomsky calls “Plato’s problem” is discussed in Plato’s Meno.  For a look at the diamond figure that plays a central role in that dialogue, see Diamond Theory.  For an excellent overview of related material in Plato, see Theory of Forms.