Semiotics - entities, my friend George, nihilism v liberalism

[Sean Mannion]

"Though I like language, I think pictorially a lot of the time. Usually it's 
easy enough to describe in words, though.

Thus I now picture a 3rd entity: the means of communication (the sign) in 
addition to the communicator and the communicand (?)"

Look, the key to this is clarity - I use a general rule of thumb in things 
like this which is that if you can't physical represent a diagram in an 
email, there's no point is using it; why go on to try and make a point of 
introducing it if you're going to have to describe in language anyway?  
Furthermore, what purpose does the introduction of this concept of 'the 
means of communication' serve that the word 'sign' doesn't? It doesn't add 
anything that was previously lacking from either 'sign' or 'linguistic 
phenomenon' - it's just as purposeless as introducing the concept of 'the 
division of labour' in the earlier example - so you're introducing concepts 
that don't need to be here.


"The transmitter (T) is embedded in a tradition of transmission (many 
speakers, artists, etc over time) and the receiver (R) likewise an 
instantiation of a tradition of perception. The sign, too, is embedded in a 
process (P) of palaver down through the ages."

Singular, not plural - there are traditions of transmittion - you can't 
gloss over differences - oral transmission isn't the same as visual 
transmission, which isn't the same as written transmission - and, in short, 
I don't think anything penetratingly accurate can be said by mainlining 
everything into a single tradition of usage and reception (I highlight these 
two because I'd wager that, again, the 'process (P)' you isolate here just 
*is* what occurs through transmission and reception, therefore not 
warranting a seperate clause here. I use 'reception' rather than 
'perception' because of the main fact that any kind of perception is bound 
up with the information received; propositional states have to be 'about' 
something.)


"I think there are also schools of criticism, say for instance Marxist, 
feminist, or Christian critics whose criteria are shaped by an influence 
outside a given text."

This doesn't prevent their criticism from being interesting and valuable, 
though their loyalty isn't completely to the author's intentions"

Of course, but criticism succeeds or fails in the degree of which it sheds 
light upon the meaning of the work discussed - a text has to be capable of 
reflecting the colour of light perceived in it, and in this sense schools of 
criticism are no different from the average reader; an alternative 
perspective can only be successful in this if the work supports the weight 
of interpretation applied to it. There are obviously influences from outside 
the text present in different schools of criticism, but if it ain't in the 
text, it just ain't in the text, and if it is in the text, then you must 
demonstrate how, correspondent to the level it is demonstratable - you 
cannot claim a central organising principle from the variable meanings of a 
handful of terms and a couple of metaphors.

Of course none of this is a demonstratable defence of authorial intention in 
fiction, but we're talking about degrees of variance here in the sense that 
while I'd never suggest that the entire range of meaning within a given text 
is determined by the hand of an author, I'd like to conclude that major 
tracts of meaning didn't get there accidentally. Discriminatory use of 
language in the composition of a literary text is based upon an intended 
meaning, and while not all of what a reader finds is a part of that intented 
meaning, the major organisational weight of what that text consists of is 
geared towards this.


"You lost me.  "Expending the time and energy to read a book" is indicative 
of a demand, rather than a desire? How so?  On whom? (or what)  (and, is 
demand not an extension of desire?)"

Because the act of reading demands our being able to know how language is 
being used (to at least a comprehensive degree), to know the rules of 
language function (even it is to know how far those rules are being 
stretched), to know the difference between aunthenticity and irony, the 
difference between the metaphorical and literal. Reading isn't just a desire 
to 'participate in this matter' - it is a demand that we 'participate in 
this manner'. And no, a demand is not necessarily an extension of desire.


"My distinction is that liberalistic (to me) would mean, that having 
lawfully acquired the book, the reader is free to use it in any way they 
wish Nihilist (to me) would be rejecting helpful ordering schemes in favor 
of nothing."

You've taken this in completely the wrong manner - I'm talking about the 
original sentence of theory  - it's too liberal in it's scope, it seeks 
acceptance as a general picture about the way that language operates between 
individuals; it cannot function and it's implications do not follow because 
the premise is incorrect. It can be narrowed down to the scope of certain 
types of power-relations, but nowhere in the original tenet is this narrow 
scope expressed. That's all. It's not truly nihilistic because it cannot 
enable us to reject what it claims we can reject.