Fwd: "logocentrism" - Word of the Day from the OED

[Dave Monroe]

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Date: Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Subject: "logocentrism" - Word of the Day from the OED
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OED Online Word of the Day

logocentrism, n.

ADDITIONS SERIES 1993
Linguistic Philos.

(lgsntrz()m)  [ad. F. logocentrisme (J. Derrida, 1967, in De la
Grammatologie 23); cf. LOGOS n., *PHONOCENTRISM n.]

    1. The belief that the rational analysis of text and of its
articulation through language is central to the meaning of being;
hence, any system of thought in which the analysis of meaning is based
upon the analysis of words, symbols, and other external references
used to express meaning.

1971 S. HEATH in J. Kristeva et al. Signs of Times 23 For Derrida it
is the very concept of the sign that is the root of the problem, a
concept inextricably involved (as its very basis) with a logocentrism
characteristic of Western philosophy and of which the reaction to
writing is a startlingly revealing syndrome. 1976 G. C. SPIVAK in J.
Derrida Of Grammatol. p. lxviii, He [sc. Derrida] relates this
phonocentrism to logocentrismthe belief that the first and last things
are the Logos, the Word, the Divine Mind, the infinite understanding
of God, an infinitely creative subjectivity, and, closer to our time,
the self-presence of full self-consciousness. 1977 Dædalus Fall 108
Semiotics is the instrument of this revelation because it is the
logical culmination of what Jacques Derrida calls the 'logocentrism'
of Western culture: the rationality which treats meanings as concepts
or logical representations that it is the function of signs to
express. 1986 A. JEFFERSON in Jefferson & Robey Mod. Lit. Theory (ed.
2) iv. 113 Logocentrism is the term he uses to describe all forms of
thought which base themselves on some external point of reference.

    2. Hence more generally, concentration upon language or words to
the exclusion or detriment of the matters to which they refer. Cf.
LOGOCENTRIC a.

1986 Brit. Jrnl. Aesthetics Autumn 314 The Crocean could always
say..that this is the fault of language (or logocentrism). 1987
Listener 1 Oct. 18/3 All this logocentrism, all the ritual..works
primarily to drive out all worldly pleasure..from the act of drinking.

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