Logocentrism

Last updated

"Logocentrism" is a term coined by the German philosopher Ludwig Klages in the early 1900s. [1] It refers to the tradition of Western science and philosophy that regards words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality. It holds the logos as epistemologically superior and that there is an original, irreducible object which the logos represent. According to logocentrism, the logos is the ideal representation of the Platonic ideal.

Contents

In linguistics

According to Jacques Derrida, with the logos as the site of a representational unity, linguistics dissects the structure of the logos further and establishes the sound of the word, coupled with the sense of the word, as the original and ideal location of metaphysical significance. Logocentric linguistics proposes that "the immediate and privileged unity which founds significance and the acts of language is the articulated unity of sound and sense within the phonic." [2] As the science of language, linguistics is a science by way of this semiotic phonology. It follows, therefore, that speech is the primary form of language and that writing is secondary, representative, and, importantly, outside of speech. Writing is a "sign of a sign" [3] and, therefore, is basically phonetic.

Jonathan Culler in his book Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction says:

Traditionally, Western philosophy has distinguished "reality" from "appearance," things themselves from representations of them, and thought from signs that express it. Signs or representations, in this view, are but a way to get at reality, truth, or ideas, and they should be as transparent as possible; they should not get in the way, should not affect or infect the thought or truth they represent. In this framework, speech has seemed the immediate manifestation or presence of thought, while writing, which operates in the absence of the speaker, has been treated as an artificial and derivative representation of speech, a potentially misleading sign of a sign (p. 11).

This notion that the written word is a sign of a sign has a long history in Western thought. According to Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), "Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words." [4] Jean-Jacques Rousseau similarly states, "Writing is nothing but the representation of speech; it is bizarre that one gives more care to the determining of the image than to the object." [5]

Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913), it is claimed by Derrida, follows this logocentric line of thought in the development of his linguistic sign and its terminology. Where the word remains known as the whole sign, the unification of concept and sound-image becomes the unification of the signified and the signifier respectively. [6] The signifier is then composed of an indivisible sound and image whereby the graphic form of the sign is exterior.

According to Saussure in his Course in General Linguistics , "The linguistic object is not defined by the combination of the written word and the spoken word: the spoken form alone constitutes the object." [7] Language has, he writes, "an oral tradition that is independent of writing." [8]

Derrida

French philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) in his book Of Grammatology responds in depth to what he believes is Saussure's logocentric argument. Derrida deconstructs the apparent inner, phonological system of language, stating in Chapter 2, Linguistics and Grammatology, that in fact and for reasons of essence Saussure's representative determination is "...an ideal explicitly directing a functioning which...is never completely phonetic". [9] The idea that writing might function other than phonetically and also as more than merely a representative delineation of speech allows an absolute concept of logos to end in what Derrida describes as infinitist metaphysics. [10] The difference in presence can never actually be reduced, as was the logocentric project; instead, the chain of signification becomes the trace of presence-absence. [11]

That the signified is originarily and essentially (and not only for a finite and created spirit) trace, that it is always already in the position of the signifier, is the apparently innocent proposition within which the metaphysics of the logos, of presence and consciousness, must reflect upon writing as its death and its resource. [12]

In literary theory

Inherent in Saussure's reasoning, a structuralist approach to literature began in the 1950s [13] to assess the literary text, or utterance, in terms of its adherence to certain organising conventions which might establish its objective meaning. Again, as for Saussure, structuralism in literary theory is condemned to fail on account of its own foundation: '...language constitutes our world, it doesn't just record it or label it. Meaning is always attributed to the object or idea by the human mind, and constructed by and expressed through language: it is not already contained within the thing'. [14]

There is no absolute truth outside of construction no matter how scientific or prolific that construction might be. Enter Derrida and post-structuralism. Other like-minded philosophers and psychoanalysts who have notably opposed logocentrism are Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Freud, as well as those who have been influenced by them in this vein. [15] Literary critic Roland Barthes (1915–1980), with his essay The Death of the Author (1968), converted from structuralism to post-structuralism.

For the post-structuralist the writer must be present in a kind of absence, or 'dead', according to Barthes; just as the reader is absent in a kind of presence at the 'moment' of the literary utterance. Post-structuralism is therefore against the moral formalism of the Western literary tradition which maintains only The Greats should be looked to for literary inspiration and indeed for a means of political control and social equilibrium.

Modernism, with its desire to regain some kind of lost presence, also resists post-structuralist thought; whereas Post-modernism accepts the loss (the loss of being as 'presence') and steps beyond the limitations of logocentrism.

In non-Western cultures

Some researchers consider that logocentrism may not be something which exists across all cultures, but instead has a particular bias in Western culture. Dennis Tedlock's study of stories in the Quiché Maya culture [16] leads him to suggest that the development of alphabetic writing systems may have led to a logocentric perspective, but this is not the case in all writing systems, and particularly less prevalent in cultures where writing has not been established. Tedlock writes, "The voice is linear, in [Derrida's] view; there is only one thing happening at a time, a sequence of phonemes," [17] and this is reflected in writing and even the study of language in the field of linguistics and what Tedlock calls "mythologics (or larger-scale structuralism)", [18] "are founded not upon a multidimensional apprehension of the multidimensional voice, but upon unilinear writing of the smallest-scale articulations within the voice." [19] This one-dimensionality of writing means that only words can be represented through alphabetic writing, and, more often than not, tone, voice, accent and style are difficult if not impossible to represent. Geaney, [20] in writing about ming (names) in early Chinese reveals that ideographic writing systems present some difficulty for the idea of logocentrism, and that even Derrida wrote of Chinese writing in an ambivalent way, assuming firstly that "writing has a historical telos in which phonetic writing is the normal 'outcome'", [21] but also "speculat[ing] without irony about Chinese writing as a 'movement of civilization outside all logocentrism'". [22]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Josephson-Storm, Jason. The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. University of Chicago Press. p. 221. ISBN   9780226403533.
  2. ↑ Derrida, p. 29
  3. ↑ Derrida, p. 29
  4. ↑ (Derrida, p. 30)
  5. ↑ (Derrida, p. 27)
  6. ↑ (Derrida, p. 31)
  7. ↑ (Derrida, p. 31)
  8. ↑ (Derrida, p. 30)
  9. ↑ (Derrida, p. 30)
  10. ↑ (Derrida, p. 71)
  11. ↑ (Derrida, p. 71)
  12. ↑ (Derrida, p. 73)
  13. ↑ (Barry, p. 38)
  14. ↑ (Barry, p. 42)
  15. ↑ (Barry, p. 64)
  16. ↑ (Tedlock)
  17. ↑ (Tedlock, p. 322)
  18. ↑ (Tedlock, p. 323)
  19. ↑ (Tedlock, p. 323)
  20. ↑ (Geaney)
  21. ↑ (Geaney, p. 251)
  22. ↑ (Geaney, p. 251)

Related Research Articles

Deconstruction is any of a loosely-defined set of approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. The concept of deconstruction was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who described it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences which are valued above appearances. Since the 1980s, these proposals of language's fluidity instead of being ideally static and discernible have inspired a range of studies in the humanities, including the disciplines of law, anthropology, historiography, linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychoanalysis, LGBT studies, and feminism. Deconstruction also inspired deconstructivism in architecture and remains important within art, music, and literary criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferdinand de Saussure</span> Swiss linguist (1857–1913)

Ferdinand de Saussure was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major founders of semiotics, or semiology, as Saussure called it.

Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of power. Although post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media within pre-established, socially constructed structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Structuralism</span> Theory of culture and methodology

Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Derrida</span> Algerian-French philosopher (1930–2004)

Jacques Derrida was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed through close readings of the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy although he distanced himself from post-structuralism and disowned the word "postmodernity".

Différance is a French term coined by Jacques Derrida. It is central to Derrida's concept of deconstruction, a critical outlook concerned with the relationship between text and meaning. The term différance means both "difference of meaning" and "deferral of meaning".

In critical theory and deconstruction, phallogocentrism is a neologism coined by Jacques Derrida to refer to the privileging of the masculine (phallus) in the construction of meaning. The term is a blend word of the older terms phallocentrism and logocentrism.

A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. It is the contrast between two mutually exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right. Binary opposition is an important concept of structuralism, which sees such distinctions as fundamental to all language and thought. In structuralism, a binary opposition is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language.

Jonathan Culler is an American literary critic. He was Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His published works are in the fields of structuralism, literary theory and literary criticism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antihumanism</span> Philosophical and social theory, critical of traditional humanism

In social theory and philosophy, antihumanism or anti-humanism is a theory that is critical of traditional humanism, traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology and its concepts of "human nature", "man" or "humanity" should be rejected as historically relative, ideological or metaphysical.

"Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" was a lecture presented at Johns Hopkins University on 21 October 1966 by philosopher Jacques Derrida. The lecture was then published in 1967 as chapter ten of Writing and Difference.

Difference is a key concept of philosophy, denoting the process or set of properties by which one entity is distinguished from another within a relational field or a given conceptual system. In the Western philosophical system, difference is traditionally viewed as being opposed to identity, following the Principles of Leibniz, and in particular, his Law of the identity of indiscernibles. In structuralist and poststructuralist accounts, however, difference is understood to be constitutive of both meaning and identity. In other words, because identity is viewed in non-essentialist terms as a construct, and because constructs only produce meaning through the interplay of differences, it is the case that for both structuralism and poststructuralism, identity cannot be said to exist without difference.

Phonocentrism is the belief that sounds and speech are inherently superior to, or more primary than, written language or sign language. Those who espouse phonocentric views maintain that spoken language is the primary and most fundamental method of communication whereas writing is merely a derived method of capturing speech. Many also believe that spoken language is inherently richer and more intuitive than written language.

In modern usage, the term grammatology refers to the scientific study of writing systems or scripts. This usage was first elucidated in English by linguist Ignace Gelb in his 1952 book A Study of Writing. The equivalent word is recorded in German and French use long before then. Grammatology can examine the typology of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken language. In its broadest sense, some scholars also include the study of literacy in grammatology and, indeed, the impact of writing on philosophy, religion, science, administration and other aspects of the organization of society. Historian Bruce Trigger associates grammatology with cultural evolution.

In literary theory, textuality comprises all of the attributes that distinguish the communicative content under analysis as an object of study. It is associated with structuralism and post-structuralism.

<i>Of Grammatology</i> 1967 book by Jacques Derrida

Of Grammatology is a 1967 book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The book, originating the idea of deconstruction, proposes that throughout continental philosophy, especially as philosophers engaged with linguistic and semiotic ideas, writing has been erroneously considered as derivative from speech, making it a "fall" from the real "full presence" of speech and the independent act of writing.

Sous rature is a strategic philosophical device originally developed by Martin Heidegger. Though never used in its contemporary French terminology by Heidegger, it is usually translated as 'under erasure', and involves the crossing out of a word within a text, but allowing it to remain legible and in place. Used extensively by Jacques Derrida, it signifies that a word is "inadequate yet necessary"; that a particular signifier is not wholly suitable for the concept it represents, but must be used as the constraints of our language offer nothing better.

Trace is one of the most important concepts in Derridian deconstruction. In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida used this concept in two of his early books, namely Writing and Difference and Of Grammatology.

Structural linguistics, or structuralism, in linguistics, denotes schools or theories in which language is conceived as a self-contained, self-regulating semiotic system whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system. It is derived from the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and is part of the overall approach of structuralism. Saussure's Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916, stressed examining language as a dynamic system of interconnected units. Saussure is also known for introducing several basic dimensions of semiotic analysis that are still important today. Two of these are his key methods of syntagmatic and paradigmatic analysis, which define units syntactically and lexically, respectively, according to their contrast with the other units in the system.

Fuoco B. Fann, is a cultural theorist. He is noted for synthesizing Post-structuralism with American Literary Criticism, Intercultural Philosophy, and Material Culture Studies. He taught at Lanzhou Jiaotong University, China before moving in 1989 to the United States, where he guest-lectured at California State University, East Bay and UC Davis, and has since resided in California. Fann’s monograph on post-structuralism and intercultural philosophy, This Self We Deserve: A Quest after Modernity, was published in 2020.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.