Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 18:01:42 +0200
Subject: Re:  The literal and the Symbolic


Cologne, 17 July 1998

Mike Staples schrieb:
> I'm not entirely clear about the distinction between the "line of
> attachability of words to things" and language as a "pointing to and
> calling beings into the open". Seems like you could say that the line of
> attachability of words to things IS a pointing to the calling beings
> into the open. And then the distinction is unclear.

Language as a system of signs for the things out there is a particular 
(Aristotelian) account of the ontological origins of language, i.e. that it 
derives from beings, which implies that beings are ontologically prior to 
language. Most linguistics today indeed is still captive to this Aristotelian 
metaphysics, and is not even up to Aristotelian metaphysics because it 
understands ontological priority as temporal priority, so it starts telling 
(silly) anthropological stories about how language came about. 

The essencing of language is not human, spoken language at all, but the pointing 
into the various regions of being, through which the multitude of beings can 
come to light and make their way to human language. The pointing itself is prior 
to any sequence thing -> impression in the soul -> thought -> sign for the 
thought. 

I’m thinking here of Heidegger’s lecture _Der Weg zur Sprache_ in which we read 
the following:

“The essencing/wesende of language is the saying as the Zeige 
(pointing/showing). Its showing/pointing is not grounded in some signs or other, 
but all signs stem from a pointing/showing in whose domain and for its 
intentions they can be signs. With a view to the jointed structure (Gefuege) of 
saying, however, we must not ascribe this showing/pointing either exclusively 
nor primarily to human action. Self-showing characterizes as appearing the 
presencing and absencing of what is essent of all kinds and degrees. Even there 
where the pointing/showing is consummated by our saying, this pointing/showing 
as referring-to is preceded by an allowing-itself-to-be-shown.” (_Unterwegs zur 
Sprache_ S.254) 

We also have to think about Heidegger’s interpretation (in the same volume) of 
Stefan George’s line of poetry:
	“Kein ding sei wo das wort gebricht.”
	No thing is where the word fractures. 

The things are not there in the first place and then named by signs, but the 
showing/pointing itself makes possible both the thing _as_ thing and its calling 
in language. 

> I say the word "Green". Is it the case that I knew the color green
> first, then thought up a word for it? In many cases this seems so. 

The word “green” is already human language and itself points in multiple 
directions. Thus green can be a colour or it can mean “inexperienced and naive”. 
Normally, the (literal) meaning as “colour” is taken as primary (or the ‘home 
position’ or ‘base position’ of the word’s meaning), from which the transferred 
meaning of “inexperienced” (via, say, the green colour of saplings and leaves in 
spring -- even though a sapling is not inexperienced, nor experienced because it 
_is_ outside the realm of experience altogether) is derived. But why this 
hierarchy? The hierarchy itself stems from an ancient metaphysical positing 
according to which the real is first and foremost that which lies before us 
present-at-hand, das Vorhandene, _to hypokeimenon_. This is the metaphysics of 
Plato and Aristotle from which traditional grammar, with its focus on the 
substantive (noun), derives. “Green” is the sign for the accidens of a colour 
adhering to a substance. But if language is essentially a pointing/showing of 
what presences and absences itself in the open, there is no longer any 
ontological ground on which the meaning of “green” as colour can be given 
priority. 

> Bill Gates decides he is
> going to call his new widget an "Operating System". And now, whenever
> someone says "Operating System" I know what this refers to...literally.

Is Bill Gates the originator of this word? The pointing towards “operating 
system” takes place long before anybody dreams up a name for a new kind of 
computer program. The pointing is already pointing at the time of Leibniz who 
brought to language the idea of a calculating machine. But calculative reason 
was not Leibniz’ invention; rather, calculative reason had already moved into 
central position as a casting of the being of beings. 

> And yet, what is the problem with calling the reference to Bill Gate's
> Operating System a literal signification, while referring to all other
> signrfication (to other background meanings) metaphorical? Just too
> confining?

What’s the problem? The metaphysical explanations still work fine, but it has to 
be seen that they only work on the basis of a certain conception of being in its 
truth in which, above all, the presence of the thing-at-hand is privileged as 
‘the real’. If beings assume their full temporal possibilities of presencing and 
absencing in the play of time, a whole alternative understanding of language, 
reality, truth, etc. opens up as an historical possibility for us.

Thanks,
Michael
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