From jfgannon@cloud9.net Sat Mar 11 07:33:38 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id HAA47922 for ; Sat, 11 Mar 2000 07:33:37 -0800 Received: from russian-caravan.cloud9.net (russian-caravan.cloud9.net [168.100.1.4]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id HAA07340 for ; Sat, 11 Mar 2000 07:33:37 -0800 Received: from cloud9.net (jfgannon.dialup.cloud9.net [168.100.203.180]) by russian-caravan.cloud9.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 930E376311 for ; Sat, 11 Mar 2000 10:33:34 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <38CA5935.D3B842B@cloud9.net> Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 09:33:26 -0500 From: "J.F. Gannon" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: radical grass roots (was: Are we tolerating the "aesthetic"?) References: <200003100514.AAA29135@darwin.helios.nd.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I know that "radical" means. I take "contingent" to be mean "that could be otherwise". I just don't think that saying conditions are are radically contingent gives any more information than saying they are contingent. Things can't be a little bit contingent any more than someone can be a little bit pregnant. I take the expression "radically contingent" as a bit of rhetoric indicating that the writer wishes to suggest that anxiety, perhaps even hysteria, is called for. I find this cliché irritating. To say that the relation of verbal sign and signification is contingent and subject to change is to say (1) that there is no necessity that a word should have the meaning it does and (2) that the meanings of words may change over time. It does not follow that ambiguity is everywhere. In context a set of verbal signs may have a determinate signification. If ambiguity were not unusual, it would be of little interest, or rather we would all have been driven mad by it long ago. Make of this last what you will. J.F. Gannon Alfred M Kriman wrote: > Steven Willett put before our consideration an MLA CFP [[1]], > drawing particular attention, among all the claims one might > question, to the "universalist assumptions of the third paragraph": > > > For example, almost everyone agrees that signification and the sign > > only arise under shifting, unstable, radically contingent conditions. > > To J.F. Gannon [[2]], "radically" indicates or is intended to suggest > hysterical. I think it means "from its very roots up" -- somewhat as > Vico might use it in his literalizing way, and as I have used "radical" > here previously (*). As some reactions to Verena Dobnik's article > (Diva thread) also suggested, there is some predisposition to ignore > the possibility of classical erudition, however fragmentary, in > nonclassicists or nonacademics. > > After some other, I think accurate, guesses as to the CFP author's > meaning, JFG states > > > ... If what the author is > > unsuccessfully trying to say, however, is that the relation of verbal sign > > and signification is contingent and subject to change, I would agree, > > although I also think that too much has been made of this banality. > > In a warm (i.e., slightly heated) exchange [[3-5]] with J.J. Peradotto > last year, JFG averred [[3]] that > > > Sometimes a cigar is merely a cigar. ... > > and further asserted [[5]] that the statement on the preceding line > is unambiguous (i.e., a proof of itself, if I understand correctly). > My own opinion at the time was that the statement is ambiguous, and > that there was not a substantive disagreement between JJP and JFG. > > If JFG's claim last year meant that some signs have completely > determined signification, then JFG's statement now repudiates it and > suggests that the claim is not such a "banality" as not to bear > repeating. > > If JFG's statement now merely clarifies his statement last year, > then it supports the CFP's claim of universality, since even as > emphatic an apparent opponent as JFG agrees but merely disapproves > the emphasis it receives. Steven Willett, who also disapproves of > some claims popular among MLA "theorists," has made clear (in the > last discussion on interpreting Sappho) that he believes that mere > personal conviction as to the meaning of a text has no standing in > the face of the (relative to us) shifted and fundamentally uncertain > contingent conditions under which the texts originally arose. It > seems to me that both in classics and in letters generally, the > ambiguity of signs is indeed accepted by "almost everyone." > > (*) In politics, I guess "radical" took its meaning in the same way, > but a somewhat alternative connotation, more like "fundamentalist," > must have given rise to the relatively conservative "partidos > radicales" of Latin America. > > [[1]] > gopher://140.142.56.13/0R117654-123017-/public/classics/classics.log200003b > [[2]] > gopher://140.142.56.13/0R221812-224304-/public/classics/classics.log200003b > > [[3]] > gopher://140.142.56.13/0R257850-261487-/public/classics/classics.log9903c > [[4]] > gopher://140.142.56.13/0R346866-352455-/public/classics/classics.log9903c > [[5]] > gopher://140.142.56.13/0R373836-377846-/public/classics/classics.log9903c .