Pandora and Occam : on the limits of language and literature

Bibliographic Information

Pandora and Occam : on the limits of language and literature

Horst Ruthrof

(Advances in semiotics)

Indiana University Press, c1992

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Evoking Pandora and Occam as metaphoric corner posts in an argument about language as discourse, Horst Ruthrof brings analytic philosophy to bear on issues of Continental philosophy, with attention to linguistic, semiological, and semiotic concerns. Instead of regarding meanings as guaranteed by definitions, the author argues that linguistic expressions are schemata directing us more or less loosely toward the activation of nonlinguistic sign systems. Ruthrof draws up a heuristic hierarchy of discourses, with literary expression at the top, descending through reduced reference and speech acts to formal logic and digital communication at the bottom. The book offers multiple perspectives from which to review traditional theories of meaning, working from a wide variety of theorists including Peirce, Frege, Husserl, Derrida, Lyotard, Davidson, and Searle. In Ruthrof's analysis, Pandora and Occam illustrate the opposition between the suppressed rich materiality of culturally saturated discourse and the stark ideality of formal sign systems.

Table of Contents

Preface Prologue: Pandora and Occam: Two Stories Introduction I. The Directionality of Meaning II. The Rape of Autumn or the Rich and Fuzzy Life of Meanings III. The Modalities of the OKunstlerromanO IV. Literature and Husserl: A Critique of Noematic Meaning V. Meaning as Sense and DerridaOs Critique of the Concept VI. The Limits of Langue VII. Phrases in Dispute: Toward a Semiotic Differend VIII. A Striptease of Meaning on the Ladder of Discourse IX. Hypocrisis or Reading as Feigning X. The Fictions of Political Discourse and the Politics of Reading Conclusion: Pandora, Occam, and the Post-Humanist Subject Notes Bibliography Index

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