Log24

From OSF . . .
Thinking through generated writing
Mercedes Bunz
Digital Humanities
King’s College London
2023-06-22

Among the positions that take this independence even further is Susanne Langer's approach towards meaning. Long before Derrida, she suggested in her chapter "The logic of signs and symbols" that we should understand meaning not as a relation to an author at all. Influenced by music and musical notation, she defines meaning instead as the function of a term from which a pattern emerges:

It is better, perhaps, to say: "Meaning is not a
quality, but a function of a term." A function is
a pattern viewed with reference to one special
term round which it centers; this pattern
emerges when we look at the given term
in its total relation to the other terms about it.
(Langer 1948, 44)

Reference:

Langer, Susanne K., 1948 [1954]. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art.  Mentor Book.