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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.
All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.
Monday, March 24, 2003
Interesting introduction to Richard Rorty's theories. Though I remain sympatheitc to Rorty, it seems to me that one can take the view that univeral interpretations of phenomena are a difficult concept at best, without having to take the view that the phenomena themselves are a secondary concept. In particular, consider the role of science; a formal system designed to provide interpretation of phenomena, but which assumes truth to have a provisional character (an intensely Popperian description, I appreciate). In certain respects, language is no different. Since sign and signifier are not identical, one cannot assume an isomorphic correspondance between the two. However, although the "copying" is imperfect, it nonetheless remains the case that "coping" would not be possible without some degree of pragmatic utility; which of necessity must have some representational function (even if sign and signifier are not congruent, they are still being used to denote, as John Searle put it*, a presence or absence; they are intentional).
*"I understand the differences between the two sentences 'the cat is on the mat' and 'the dog is on the mat' in precisely the way I do because the word 'cat' is present in the first while absent in the second, and the word 'dog' is present in the second, while absent from the first ... the system of differences is precisely a system of presences and absences. "
As ever, the difficulty in this area is working out what the fuss is about.
posted by Richard 2:25 pm
