RIP Jacques Derrida

[jolly]

jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
Searle:
> The problem that all these guys have is that once you give me that first
> premise--that there is a reality that exists totally independently of us--then
> the other steps follow naturally. Step 1, external realism: You've got a real
> world that exists independently of human beings. And step 2: Words in the
> language can be used to refer to objects and states of affairs in that
> external reality. And then step 3: If 1 and 2 are right, then some
> organization of those words can state objective truth about that reality. Step
> 4 is we can have knowledge, objective knowledge, of that truth. At some point
> they have to resist that derivation, because then you've got this objectivity
> of knowledge and truth on which the Enlightenment vision rests, and that's
> what they want to reject.

"You've got to be joking. Step 2 doesn't even follow from Step 1, let alone
Steps 3 & 4. Talk about your "excluded middles"! Searle's attack was never
taken seriously by Derrida, nor by most reasonable persons within the fields
in which Derrida worked, and it's easy to see why."


So, you are claiming words CANNOT  be used to refer to objects and states of affairs in that external reality?   Or only sometimes.  Often or infrequently. You don't understand what I mean when I say "Derrida is dead? Or there are too many connotations, and thus no stable meaning?  

How about a word such as Mother. Mutter, Madre. Mater. Been around  indo-european linguistics probably 3000+ years, if not more. Is there an unlimited amount of meanings when I say "chinga tu  madre"?   You are confusing literary connotation and evocation with reference and semantic meaning methinks.

 

Derrida, like Sartre, was mostly a swindle, man.

 


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