Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology
Author: Beata Stawarska
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2015-01-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190213035

This book draws on recent developments in research on Ferdinand de Saussure's general linguistics to challenge the structuralist doctrine associated with the posthumous Course in General Linguistics (1916) and to develop a new philosophical interpretation of Saussure's conception of language based solely on authentic source materials. This project follows two new editorial paradigms: 1. a critical re-examination of the 1916 Course in light of the relevant sources and 2. a reclamation of the historically authentic materials from Saussure's Nachlass, some of them recently discovered. In Stawarska's book, this editorial paradigm shift serves to expose the difficulties surrounding the official Saussurean doctrine with its sets of oppositional pairings: the signifier and the signified; la langue and la parole; synchrony and diachrony. The book therefore puts pressure not only on the validity of the posthumous editorial redaction of Saussure's course in general linguistics in the Course, but also on its structuralist and post-structuralist legacy within the works of Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and Derrida. Its constructive contribution consists in reclaiming the writings from Saussure's Nachlass in the service of a linguistic phenomenology, which intersects individual expression in the present with historically sedimented social conventions. Stawarska develops such a conception of language by engaging Saussure's own reflections with relevant writings by Hegel, Husserl, Roman Jakobson, and Merleau-Ponty. Finally, she enriches her philosophical critique with a detailed historical account of the material and institutional processes that led to the ghostwriting and legitimizing the Course as official Saussurean doctrine.

Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology

Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology
Author: Beata Stawarska
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2020-04-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030430979

This is the first English-language guidebook geared at an interdisciplinary audience that reflects relevant scholarly developments related to the legacy and legitimacy of Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics (1916) today. It critically assesses the relation between materials from the Course and from the linguist’s Nachlass (works unpublished or even unknown at Saussure’s death, some of them recently discovered). This book pays close attention to the set of oppositional pairings: the signifier and the signified, la langue (language system) and la parole (speech), and synchrony and diachrony, that became the hallmark of structuralism across the humanities. Sometimes referred to as the “Saussurean doctrine,” this hierarchical conceptual apparatus becomes revised in favor of a horizontal set of relations, which co-involves speaking subjects and linguistic structures. This book documents the continued relevance of Saussure’s linguistics in the 21st Century, and it sheds light on its legacy within structuralism and phenomenology. The reader can consult the book on its own, or in tandem with the 1916 Course.

Beyond Pure Reason

Beyond Pure Reason
Author: Boris Gasparov
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2012-09-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0231504454

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) revolutionized the study of language, signs, and discourse in the twentieth century. He successfully reconstructed the proto-Indo-European vowel system, advanced a conception of language as a system of arbitrary signs made meaningful through kinetic interrelationships, and developed a theory of the anagram so profound it gave rise to poststructural literary criticism. The roots of these disparate, even contradictory achievements lie in the thought of Early German Romanticism, which Saussure consulted for its insight into the nature of meaning and discourse. Conducting the first comprehensive analysis of Saussure's intellectual heritage, Boris Gasparov links Sassurean notions of cognition, language, and history to early Romantic theories of cognition and the transmission of cultural memory. In particular, several fundamental categories of Saussure's philosophy of language, such as the differential nature of language, the mutability and immutability of semiotic values, and the duality of the signifier and the signified, are rooted in early Romantic theories of "progressive" cognition and child cognitive development. Consulting a wealth of sources only recently made available, Gasparov casts the seeming contradictions and paradoxes of Saussure's work as a genuine tension between the desire to bring linguistics and semiotics in line with modernist epistemology on the one hand, and Jena Romantics' awareness of language's dynamism and its transcendence of the boundaries of categorical reasoning on the other. Advancing a radical new understanding of Saussure, Gasparov reveals aspects of the intellectual's work previously overlooked by both his followers and his postmodern critics.

Saussure and his Interpreters

Saussure and his Interpreters
Author: Harris Roy Harris
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-07-30
Genre: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES
ISBN: 1474468845

This book is the first major reassessment of the reception of Saussure's ideas throughout the twentieth century. That Saussure's work profoundly influenced developments in such diverse fields as linguistics, anthropology, psychology and literary studies is denied by no one. But what exactly Saussure's views were taken to be by his interpreters has not hitherto been subject to any comprehensive critical survey. How well were Saussure's ideas understood by those who took them up? Or how badly misunderstood? And why? The answers to these questions address central issues in the history of Western culture.Each chapter focuses on one particular interpreter of Saussure's work, but many others are mentioned in context for purposes of comparison, and attention is drawn to connections and disparities between their interpretations. Those whose interpretations are examined in detail include Bloomfield, Hjelmslev, Jakobson, Levi-Strauss, Chomsky, Barthes and Derrida.Features:* The author is acknowledged as an expert on Saussure's work* This is the first study of the reception of Saussure's ideas, and how well they were understood by those who took them up* The work of Saussure is a landmark in the history of linguistic thought

Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language

Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language
Author: Dimitris Apostolopoulos
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2019-09-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1786612003

Merleau-Ponty’s status as a philosopher of perception is well-established, but his distinctive contributions to the philosophy and phenomenology of language have yet to be fully appreciated. Through detailed, clear, and accessible analyses of Merleau-Ponty’s views of linguistic meaning, expression, and understanding, and by tracing the evolution and development of these views throughout the course of his philosophical career, Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Language offers a global and comprehensive picture of his engagement with the philosophy of language. This book demonstrates that the phenomenology of language is essential for grasping the meaning and motivations behind some of Merleau-Ponty’s most celebrated philosophical contributions. It argues that his philosophy of language should take on a central role in our appraisal of the development and basic goals of his thought. And it suggests that the success of phenomenology’s return to the ‘things themselves’ must be judged not only by the evidence of intuition, but also by the labour of expression.

New Testament Semiotics

New Testament Semiotics
Author: Timo Eskola
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2021-08-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004465766

Navigating through different realist and nominalist traditions, Timo Eskola suggests that signs are about conditions and functions and participate in a web of relations. Questioning Derridean poststructuralism, the author reinstates Benveniste’s hermeneutics of enunciation and suggests a new approach to metatheology.

Disclosing the World

Disclosing the World
Author: Andrew Inkpin
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2024-05-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262551993

A phenomenological conception of language, drawing on Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein, with implications for both the philosophy of language and current cognitive science. In this book, Andrew Inkpin considers the disclosive function of language—what language does in revealing or disclosing the world. His approach to this question is a phenomenological one, centering on the need to accord with the various experiences speakers can have of language. With this aim in mind, he develops a phenomenological conception of language with important implications for both the philosophy of language and recent work in the embodied-embedded-enactive-extended (4e) tradition of cognitive science. Inkpin draws extensively on the work of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, showing how their respective conceptions of language can be combined to complement each other within a unified view. From the early Heidegger, Inkpin extracts a basic framework for a phenomenological conception of language, comprising both a general picture of the role of language and a specific model of the function of words. Merleau-Ponty's views are used to explicate the generic “pointing out”—or presentational—function of linguistic signs in more detail, while the late Wittgenstein is interpreted as providing versatile means to describe their many pragmatic uses. Having developed this unified phenomenological view, Inkpin explores its broader significance. He argues that it goes beyond the conventional realism/idealism opposition, that it challenges standard assumptions in mainstream post-Fregean philosophy of language, and that it makes a significant contribution not only to the philosophical understanding of language but also to 4e cognitive science.

On Ferdinand de Saussure's Philosophy of Language

On Ferdinand de Saussure's Philosophy of Language
Author: Aphinant Tantiwatana
Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2010-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9783838375038

This thesis mainly makes a detailed and somewhat technical investigation into Saussure's concepts of difference, i.e. his "difference-without-positive- terms," or "opposition" as he also calls, and systematicity along with other related concepts, in his discourse on language drawn mainly from the Course in General Linguistics (here after CGL). The outcomes of the research would demonstrate how difference and opposition are related, and also how systematicity is involved with the two; also how they function in the basic construction of language

Saussure

Saussure
Author: David Holdcroft
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 1991-04-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521339186

This book offers a critical assessment of Saussure's central ideas.