WEBVTT 00:01.700 --> 00:04.650 Prof: Well, I'd like to welcome the 00:04.646 --> 00:06.296 prospective students. 00:06.300 --> 00:09.340 I won't say the word "Yalie" 00:09.341 --> 00:12.631 prematurely, but of course I hope you all 00:12.630 --> 00:13.370 come. 00:13.370 --> 00:17.010 I wish I had a chance to provide a little context for 00:17.010 --> 00:21.070 what I'm going to say today, but maybe you'll scramble into 00:21.070 --> 00:23.870 some sense of things as we go along. 00:23.870 --> 00:32.560 This lecture concerns an essay written to immediate widespread 00:32.560 --> 00:38.260 acclaim and controversy by two young, 00:38.260 --> 00:43.100 at the time quite uninfluential and untenured scholars trying to 00:43.103 --> 00:45.413 make their way in the world. 00:45.410 --> 00:49.090 They certainly succeeded with this essay, 00:49.090 --> 00:51.920 which was published in Critical Inquiry, 00:51.920 --> 00:56.410 then certainly the leading organ for the dissemination of 00:56.413 --> 01:00.423 innovative theoretical ideas, and they were, 01:00.417 --> 01:05.697 generally speaking, gratified by the results. 01:05.700 --> 01:08.790 Almost immediately the editors of Critical Inquiry 01:08.787 --> 01:11.957 decided to publish, together with "Against 01:11.962 --> 01:14.652 Theory," in book form a series of 01:14.653 --> 01:18.003 responses to "Against Theory," 01:18.000 --> 01:22.590 all of them sort of polite, carefully thought-through 01:22.593 --> 01:27.163 responses which made a very interesting thin book, 01:27.159 --> 01:30.569 which is still available. 01:30.569 --> 01:34.699 I think it's still in print and well worth having if you take an 01:34.697 --> 01:38.627 interest in the controversies that the article generated, 01:38.629 --> 01:40.809 and of course, I'm hoping in the time 01:40.806 --> 01:43.886 remaining to get you to take an interest in them. 01:43.890 --> 01:47.230 Knapp and Michaels were then, still are, 01:47.230 --> 01:50.430 what's called "neo-pragmatists," 01:50.426 --> 01:54.636 which is to say they are influenced most immediately by 01:54.637 --> 01:59.627 an important book written in the 1970s by the philosopher Richard 01:59.626 --> 02:04.146 Rorty called Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature; 02:04.149 --> 02:08.979 but Rorty was writing in a tradition that goes back through 02:08.983 --> 02:14.133 the important work of John Dewey in the 1930s and '40s, 02:14.128 --> 02:18.018 and before then not only to the great philosophical 02:18.021 --> 02:22.721 interventions of William James, Henry James's brother, 02:22.717 --> 02:28.487 but also a theory of signs by Charles Sanders Peirce, 02:28.490 --> 02:34.710 a theory which at the time didn't generate too much 02:34.711 --> 02:38.321 recognition or controversy. 02:38.318 --> 02:41.878 It was taken up by the so-called Cambridge School of 02:41.878 --> 02:45.018 literary critics headed by I.A. Richards. 02:45.020 --> 02:48.900 He and C.K. Ogden wrote some reflections on Peirce's 02:48.899 --> 02:52.499 semiotics, but today with pragmatism, 02:52.500 --> 02:56.200 neo-pragmatism-- a fairly important strain in 02:56.199 --> 02:59.559 academic theoretical and literary thinking-- 02:59.560 --> 03:04.760 Peirce's semiotics is in a way receiving more attention, 03:04.758 --> 03:10.158 in a way also challenging the hegemony in the field of 03:10.164 --> 03:14.454 literary theory of Saussure's semiotics. 03:14.449 --> 03:18.799 This sense of the sign as something different from what 03:18.802 --> 03:23.802 Saussure said it was is going to be the underlying theme of the 03:23.801 --> 03:27.351 second and central part of this lecture. 03:27.348 --> 03:31.178 Nineteen eighty-two was probably the high-water mark 03:31.181 --> 03:35.921 both of the fascination and the frustration with literary theory 03:35.917 --> 03:37.417 in this country. 03:37.419 --> 03:40.799 It was a hot-button topic--we've gone into this 03:40.795 --> 03:43.825 before-- in ways that it is not really 03:43.825 --> 03:45.715 today, so that our interest in 03:45.715 --> 03:48.385 literary theory is at least in part historical, 03:48.389 --> 03:49.679 one might want to say. 03:49.680 --> 03:53.160 In 1982, though, where you stood on these 03:53.160 --> 03:56.640 matters just made all the difference, 03:56.639 --> 03:59.859 and it was in that atmosphere that Knapp and Michaels's 03:59.863 --> 04:02.433 "Against Theory" was published. 04:02.430 --> 04:05.680 Now as I say, they were neo-pragmatists, 04:05.680 --> 04:10.400 and what that means basically is that one knows things, 04:10.400 --> 04:14.400 which is the same thing as to say that one believes things, 04:14.400 --> 04:17.920 such that one acts in the world unhesitatingly as an 04:17.923 --> 04:18.963 agent. 04:18.959 --> 04:23.869 Everything that matters in being human has to do with one's 04:23.867 --> 04:27.937 powers of agency, but there are no actual 04:27.940 --> 04:34.360 foundations in what we can know objectively for our beliefs and 04:34.360 --> 04:35.500 actions. 04:35.500 --> 04:39.000 In other words, it's a position which is called 04:39.000 --> 04:42.800 anti-foundational or anti-foundationalist but not a 04:42.803 --> 04:47.083 position that, as such a position might imply, 04:47.079 --> 04:52.009 somehow entails nihilism or a kind of crippling radical 04:52.011 --> 04:53.291 skepticism. 04:53.290 --> 04:56.870 On the contrary, it's a position that insists 04:56.865 --> 05:01.085 that we just do what we do, that we are always doing, 05:01.091 --> 05:04.831 thinking, believing, and saying something; 05:04.829 --> 05:09.619 that we are always exerting an influence as social beings in 05:09.617 --> 05:13.647 our surroundings, and that the only thing that 05:13.653 --> 05:18.833 needn't concern us about our powers of agency is that perhaps 05:18.829 --> 05:23.859 we don't really have a full, adequate objective account of 05:23.862 --> 05:28.642 how and why it is that we do and say and believe and influence 05:28.641 --> 05:31.151 things in the way that we do. 05:31.149 --> 05:36.399 That position is essentially the position taken up in Knapp 05:36.401 --> 05:37.761 and Michaels. 05:37.759 --> 05:41.889 Now you saw it last time already in the essay of Stanley 05:41.889 --> 05:43.679 Fish-- Stanley Fish, 05:43.675 --> 05:47.955 who takes it that we are largely produced by the 05:47.964 --> 05:52.074 interpretive community to which we belong. 05:52.069 --> 05:56.379 You'll recall his understanding of this community as that which 05:56.380 --> 05:58.980 constitutes our values-- in other words, 05:58.976 --> 06:01.126 there's nothing intrinsic to ourselves, 06:01.129 --> 06:04.739 nothing unique in our own modes of perception, 06:04.740 --> 06:08.220 but rather only the ways in which our educational 06:08.221 --> 06:12.431 circumstances bring us to believe and understand things. 06:12.430 --> 06:16.510 This, too, is a neo-pragmatist position. 06:16.509 --> 06:20.319 Now you notice that in the third part of the Knapp and 06:20.324 --> 06:23.644 Michaels essay, they engage in a kind of polite 06:23.636 --> 06:25.576 disagreement with Fish. 06:25.579 --> 06:29.999 There is an underlying, very broad agreement with him, 06:30.000 --> 06:33.610 but remember in the third part of the essay they're talking 06:33.607 --> 06:36.027 about the synonymity, the identity, 06:36.026 --> 06:40.206 of knowledge and belief, and they point to a particular 06:40.208 --> 06:44.548 passage in one of Fish's arguments where he kind of slips 06:44.553 --> 06:47.203 into the idea that, on the one hand, 06:47.199 --> 06:50.229 you have knowledge and then, on the other hand, 06:50.233 --> 06:53.323 you have, in relation to that, belief. 06:53.319 --> 06:54.769 They say, "No, no, no, no. 06:54.769 --> 06:57.629 You can't separate knowledge and belief," 06:57.627 --> 07:00.927 and just on those grounds they disagree with Fish. 07:00.930 --> 07:04.270 Fish writes one of the responses in the book that's 07:04.273 --> 07:07.683 then subsequently published concerning "Against 07:07.684 --> 07:11.834 Theory," but it's a completely friendly controversy 07:11.829 --> 07:15.039 about a transitory and superficial matter. 07:15.040 --> 07:18.550 As a matter of fact, while I'm going to pay a lot of 07:18.552 --> 07:21.312 attention to the first two arguments-- 07:21.310 --> 07:24.070 there are basically three arguments in this essay-- 07:24.069 --> 07:27.359 I'm going to pay very little attention to the third argument 07:27.360 --> 07:30.540 in which Fish is challenged about the relationship between 07:30.538 --> 07:34.108 knowledge and belief, in part at least because it's 07:34.112 --> 07:37.042 an argument that belongs to philosophy. 07:37.040 --> 07:40.170 It is the cornerstone of Rorty's argument in 07:40.168 --> 07:44.528 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and perhaps not so 07:44.533 --> 07:48.613 immediately relevant to the kinds of things that we think 07:48.608 --> 07:51.298 about in doing literary theory. 07:51.300 --> 07:56.580 So to turn then to what they actually do say in relation to 07:56.584 --> 08:00.234 this movement that I'm talking about, 08:00.230 --> 08:02.930 you notice for example that in tone, 08:02.930 --> 08:06.340 their work is very similar to that of Stanley Fish. 08:06.338 --> 08:10.728 It's a kind of a downright, no-nonsense, 08:10.730 --> 08:14.640 let's-get-on-with-it kind of tone that, 08:14.639 --> 08:18.999 after reading Derrida and other writers of that kind, 08:19.000 --> 08:24.030 you're perhaps not quite ready for. 08:24.029 --> 08:25.689 In a way it's bracing. 08:25.689 --> 08:30.259 It must be kind of a relief to get this sort of no-nonsense 08:30.259 --> 08:34.429 attitude toward these issues after all the tacking and 08:34.433 --> 08:38.773 veering that we're likely to have experienced in earlier 08:38.767 --> 08:39.867 writers. 08:39.870 --> 08:43.690 In a way, the tone comes with the territory. 08:43.690 --> 08:47.630 You take these views and in a way, the tone seems to follow 08:47.625 --> 08:50.945 from it, because what they're saying in effect is, 08:50.950 --> 08:52.850 You just do what you do. 08:52.850 --> 08:54.280 You think what you think. 08:54.279 --> 08:57.299 As a literary interpreter, you're bound to have some 08:57.298 --> 09:00.618 opinion about what you're looking at, so just get on with 09:00.615 --> 09:01.025 it. 09:01.028 --> 09:04.598 Express that opinion, that's your job of work. 09:04.600 --> 09:10.070 On this view and in this tone, the only way you can go wrong 09:10.068 --> 09:15.258 is to grope around for some theoretical justification for 09:15.259 --> 09:17.299 what you're doing. 09:17.298 --> 09:19.198 It's just fine that you're doing it. 09:19.200 --> 09:20.290 Don't worry about it. 09:20.288 --> 09:22.288 Get on with it, but don't think, 09:22.285 --> 09:25.565 according to the argument of Knapp and Michaels, 09:25.570 --> 09:29.760 that you can hope to find anything like an underlying or 09:29.760 --> 09:34.030 broad theoretical justification for what you're doing. 09:34.029 --> 09:37.739 Obviously, that rather challenging and provocative 09:37.740 --> 09:42.210 notion is something that lends itself readily to the sort of 09:42.207 --> 09:45.537 no-nonsense tone that I'm talking about. 09:45.538 --> 09:49.378 So turning then to their argument, 09:49.379 --> 09:58.329 they argue that people become entangled with issues of theory, 09:58.330 --> 10:02.530 all of which in their view should be avoided, 10:02.528 --> 10:08.468 when they do two--well, three but, as I say, 10:08.470 --> 10:10.140 we're going to set "knowledge and belief" 10:10.139 --> 10:12.169 aside-- when they make three 10:12.173 --> 10:14.083 fundamental mistakes. 10:14.080 --> 10:18.560 The first is to suppose that there is a difference between 10:18.557 --> 10:21.777 meaning and intention: in other words, 10:21.778 --> 10:24.448 for example, that to know a meaning you have 10:24.446 --> 10:26.736 to be able to invoke an intention, 10:26.740 --> 10:29.910 on the one hand, or in the absence of an 10:29.912 --> 10:33.412 intention, we cannot possibly speak of a 10:33.408 --> 10:35.678 meaning, on the other hand. 10:35.678 --> 10:38.888 That's their first argument: people become embroiled in 10:38.894 --> 10:41.874 theory when they make one of those two mistakes. 10:41.870 --> 10:44.490 We'll come back to that in a minute. 10:44.490 --> 10:48.860 The second argument is their insistence that there is no such 10:48.856 --> 10:52.416 thing as a difference between language and speech: 10:52.423 --> 10:55.843 in other words, the Saussurian idea that we 10:55.841 --> 11:00.351 have language somehow or another virtually present in our heads 11:00.346 --> 11:04.556 as a lexicon and a set of rules of grammar and syntax, 11:04.558 --> 11:09.278 that language or langue produces speech, 11:09.278 --> 11:11.358 what I say from sentence to sentence, 11:11.360 --> 11:15.830 or parole--this notion is simply false because there is 11:15.832 --> 11:19.062 no difference between language and speech. 11:19.059 --> 11:22.529 That's their second premise. 11:22.528 --> 11:26.758 Now before I launch into those arguments, let me say one more 11:26.764 --> 11:29.804 thing about their attitude toward theory. 11:29.798 --> 11:33.688 Let me call your attention to the very first paragraph, 11:33.688 --> 11:37.288 which in your copy center packet is on page 079. 11:37.288 --> 11:40.348 This is the very first paragraph of "Against 11:40.346 --> 11:43.596 Theory," where interestingly they exempt 11:43.596 --> 11:46.586 certain ways of thinking about literature, 11:46.590 --> 11:50.710 certainly quasi-scientific ways of thinking about literature, 11:50.710 --> 11:53.650 from their charge against theory. 11:53.649 --> 11:56.069 They say: The term ["theory"] 11:56.067 --> 11:59.437 is sometimes applied to literary subjects with no direct 11:59.438 --> 12:02.748 bearing on the interpretation of individual works, 12:02.750 --> 12:07.770 such as narratology, stylistics, and prosody. 12:07.769 --> 12:11.539 Despite their generality, however, these subjects seem to 12:11.542 --> 12:14.912 us essentially empirical, and our arguments against 12:14.908 --> 12:17.198 theory will not apply to them. 12:17.200 --> 12:21.200 Well, now this is a little surprising because for one 12:21.197 --> 12:22.617 thing, in this course, 12:22.623 --> 12:24.583 which is presumably devoted to theory, 12:24.580 --> 12:26.400 we've talked about some of these things-- 12:26.399 --> 12:29.889 especially about narratology: stylistics-- 12:29.889 --> 12:37.369 which is the science of style and how one can approach style 12:37.373 --> 12:41.103 syntactically, statistically and in the 12:41.099 --> 12:43.649 variety of ways in which that's done-- 12:43.649 --> 12:48.129 and poetics, which is general ideas about 12:48.133 --> 12:55.213 what constitutes a poem, or a text written in some other 12:55.206 --> 12:56.116 genre. 12:56.120 --> 12:57.830 All of these, for example, 12:57.825 --> 13:01.435 must remind us very much of the Russian formalists. 13:01.440 --> 13:03.830 Narratology, as we studied it, 13:03.833 --> 13:07.223 is largely derived from structuralism, 13:07.220 --> 13:10.230 indeed also from certain ideas of Freud, 13:10.230 --> 13:14.380 and all of this sounds suspiciously like theory. 13:14.379 --> 13:16.809 What point are they making about it? 13:16.808 --> 13:20.058 Well, simply, the point that those ways of 13:20.056 --> 13:24.326 thinking about literature, which they exempt from their 13:24.331 --> 13:26.551 diatribe against theory. 13:26.548 --> 13:29.868 are the ways that they call "empirical," 13:29.874 --> 13:33.274 ways of thinking about literature that are based on 13:33.265 --> 13:35.205 observation-- and that, of course, 13:35.208 --> 13:36.598 would certainly, it seems to me, 13:36.604 --> 13:39.434 apply to the Russian formalists or at least to what the Russian 13:39.432 --> 13:43.352 formalists think they're doing-- ways that are empirical in the 13:43.346 --> 13:47.306 sense that they observe data, they build up a kind of 13:47.311 --> 13:51.411 database, and they generalize from what they have observed. 13:51.408 --> 13:56.038 They begin, in other words, with the object in question and 13:56.037 --> 13:58.587 then draw conclusions from it. 13:58.590 --> 14:02.570 So empirical approaches to literature, 14:02.570 --> 14:06.550 the simple observation of data from which one can generalize-- 14:06.548 --> 14:11.538 they exempt these from the general charge against literary 14:11.541 --> 14:12.331 theory. 14:12.330 --> 14:19.200 Turning then to the idea that intention and meaning just must 14:19.203 --> 14:23.783 be the same thing, and then subsequently the idea 14:23.782 --> 14:27.552 that language and speech just must be the same thing: 14:27.547 --> 14:32.037 in the background I'd like you to be thinking about some of the 14:32.035 --> 14:35.365 implications of this sentence [points to board: 14:35.365 --> 14:38.765 "I can know the meaning of a word, 14:38.769 --> 14:40.809 but can I know the intention of a word?"] 14:40.812 --> 14:43.362 by Stanley Cavell which was written in another one of the 14:43.355 --> 14:46.075 responses to this essay that was published in the book, 14:46.080 --> 14:47.240 Against Theory. 14:47.240 --> 14:49.250 I don't want to reflect on it now, 14:49.250 --> 14:56.130 but it seems to me a strikingly vivid way of posing a challenge 14:56.128 --> 15:02.228 to the Knapp and Michaels position which in a variety of 15:02.230 --> 15:05.110 ways, if only by implication, 15:05.113 --> 15:06.813 we'll be touching on. 15:06.808 --> 15:11.678 So what do Knapp and Michaels do in order to convince us?-- 15:11.678 --> 15:15.198 and I'm going to be going a long way with them here, 15:15.200 --> 15:18.680 indeed almost all the way, even though I'm going to be 15:18.677 --> 15:22.547 taking a sharp turning toward the end of the road which, 15:22.549 --> 15:24.549 I hope, saves theory. 15:24.548 --> 15:27.998 After all, it's scarcely conscionable to stand here 15:28.004 --> 15:31.944 twenty-six times in front of you for an hour each and then 15:31.942 --> 15:35.812 finally to confess at the end that the thing we have been 15:35.812 --> 15:39.892 talking about should be banished from our vocabulary. 15:39.889 --> 15:41.609 > 15:41.610 --> 15:44.480 Needless to say, it's incumbent on me to save 15:44.480 --> 15:45.850 our subject matter. 15:45.850 --> 15:49.290 I will, but you're going to have to wait a while because, 15:49.293 --> 15:52.743 as I say, I am going to be going a long way down the road 15:52.738 --> 15:54.458 with Knapp and Michaels. 15:54.460 --> 15:55.960 Knapp and Michaels say in effect, Well, 15:55.957 --> 15:56.587 you know what? 15:56.590 --> 16:00.570 The thing about the way in which we approach any text, 16:00.570 --> 16:03.220 any utterance, any instance of language 16:03.216 --> 16:07.626 floating before us, is just to take for granted 16:07.633 --> 16:10.413 that it has an intention. 16:10.408 --> 16:13.858 As theorists and critics, we worry away at the question 16:13.856 --> 16:19.526 of how we can know intention, and all of this is a dangerous 16:19.528 --> 16:26.228 mistake because the fact is, in everyday practice any piece 16:26.230 --> 16:32.580 of language we encounter we just assume to have an intention. 16:32.580 --> 16:33.360 All right. 16:33.360 --> 16:38.260 So they give us an example in which this assumption is tested 16:38.264 --> 16:43.254 and makes us realize what's at stake in supposing that we know 16:43.249 --> 16:45.619 the meaning of something. 16:45.620 --> 16:47.730 Ordinarily, we just spontaneously say, 16:47.730 --> 16:49.840 "I know what that means," 16:49.840 --> 16:51.450 or if we don't know what it means, we say, 16:51.447 --> 16:53.797 "It must mean something even though I don't know what it 16:53.802 --> 16:54.432 means." 16:54.428 --> 16:59.128 That's our normal approach to a piece of language. 16:59.129 --> 17:02.829 Then they say, Suppose you're walking on the 17:02.833 --> 17:06.283 beach and you come across four lines-- 17:06.278 --> 17:09.688 "lines" is already a dangerous thing to 17:09.692 --> 17:12.422 say-- four scratches in the sand that 17:12.415 --> 17:16.505 look an awful lot like the first stanza of Wordsworth's 'A 17:16.510 --> 17:20.200 Slumber Did My Spirit Seal': A slumber did my spirit seal; 17:20.200 --> 17:21.660 I had no human fears. 17:21.660 --> 17:24.030 She seem'd a thing that could not feel 17:24.029 --> 17:27.629 The touch of earthly years. 17:27.630 --> 17:31.180 There it is on the beach just right in front of us; 17:31.180 --> 17:33.680 and we say, Oh, well, somebody's come along, 17:33.680 --> 17:36.750 some Wordsworth lover has come along here and scratched these 17:36.746 --> 17:40.116 lines in the sand, so that the intention of the 17:40.121 --> 17:41.931 text is unquestioned. 17:41.930 --> 17:43.460 Wordsworth wrote it. 17:43.460 --> 17:48.740 Somebody now wants to remind us of what a wonderful stanza it 17:48.741 --> 17:50.681 is, and there it is. 17:50.680 --> 17:53.890 Of course, it's very difficult to know what it means, 17:53.892 --> 17:56.512 but at least I can ascribe meaning to it because, 17:56.505 --> 17:58.515 no doubt, it's an intended thing. 17:58.519 --> 18:00.509 But then what happens? 18:00.509 --> 18:05.719 A huge wave comes along and leaves on the beach underneath 18:05.720 --> 18:10.750 the first stanza the other stanza, and this of course is 18:10.747 --> 18:12.847 highly problematic. 18:12.849 --> 18:17.449 There it is: No motion has she now, no force; 18:17.450 --> 18:21.240 She neither hears nor sees; Roll'd round in earth's diurnal 18:21.240 --> 18:23.420 course, With rocks, and stones, 18:23.423 --> 18:24.193 and trees. 18:24.190 --> 18:26.900 Now we are really puzzled. 18:26.900 --> 18:31.630 Maybe, as Knapp and Michaels say, the sea is a kind of a 18:31.625 --> 18:36.865 pantheistic being that likes to write poetry--so the sea wrote 18:36.867 --> 18:37.467 it. 18:37.470 --> 18:41.510 Maybe, they say later on, there are little men in a 18:41.509 --> 18:45.139 submarine who look at their handiwork and say, 18:45.144 --> 18:47.574 "Gee, that was great. 18:47.569 --> 18:48.719 Let's try that again." 18:48.720 --> 18:52.330 In other words, we can infer all sorts of 18:52.332 --> 18:56.882 authors for the stanza, but it's much more likely that 18:56.876 --> 19:00.316 instead of saying that the sea writes poetry, 19:00.318 --> 19:03.708 or instead of saying there are little sort of homunculi in 19:03.705 --> 19:06.685 submarines writing poetry-- instead of saying that, 19:06.691 --> 19:08.831 it's much more likely that we'll say, 19:08.828 --> 19:11.058 "This is an amazing coincidence, 19:11.058 --> 19:13.878 truly amazing, but it's just a coincidence. 19:13.880 --> 19:16.790 What else could it be?" 19:16.788 --> 19:20.688 Knapp and Michaels's point, which was the same point that 19:20.692 --> 19:23.482 you might make about a parrot saying, 19:23.480 --> 19:25.860 "My boss is a jerk," for example-- 19:25.858 --> 19:28.338 you know the parrot doesn't mean that. 19:28.339 --> 19:31.719 The parrot is just making words. 19:31.720 --> 19:35.350 Somebody else meant it, maybe, but that's just words 19:35.352 --> 19:36.992 for the parrot, okay? 19:36.990 --> 19:39.720 Or monkeys at typewriters writing Shakespeare. 19:39.720 --> 19:43.880 We are told that given eternity, this is a task that 19:43.880 --> 19:47.060 could be accomplished, always supposing somebody were 19:47.057 --> 19:49.177 there to whisk away the sheets whenever they wrote a word 19:49.181 --> 19:50.131 > 19:50.130 --> 19:51.720 and finally put it back together. 19:51.720 --> 19:55.210 All of these things are possibilities, 19:55.210 --> 19:59.210 but we suddenly realize that those texts, 19:59.210 --> 20:03.730 "My boss is a jerk" and "A slumber did my 20:03.730 --> 20:07.600 spirit seal," written by chance by whatever 20:07.595 --> 20:09.955 it is-- and already there is a sort of 20:09.962 --> 20:12.312 an intentionality entailed in the idea of writing 20:12.305 --> 20:13.715 "by" something-- 20:13.720 --> 20:17.690 but just left by chance, we suddenly realize, 20:17.690 --> 20:22.070 according to Knapp and Michaels, that in that case 20:22.073 --> 20:26.013 those words are only like language. 20:26.009 --> 20:31.409 They are not actually language because nobody wrote them; 20:31.410 --> 20:35.990 nothing wrote them; no entity or being from God on 20:35.989 --> 20:37.649 down wrote them. 20:37.650 --> 20:40.450 They are just there by chance. 20:40.450 --> 20:44.750 Therefore, even though they look like language, 20:44.751 --> 20:50.271 we suddenly realize that it would be foolish to suppose that 20:50.271 --> 20:52.331 they have meaning. 20:52.328 --> 20:55.798 There is a poem that exactly resembles this bunch of marks 20:55.795 --> 20:59.655 that we see in front of us, and that poem has meaning, 20:59.660 --> 21:03.350 but this bunch of marks does not have meaning. 21:03.348 --> 21:06.608 Now I think probably most of us--and that's why I think in a 21:06.608 --> 21:09.978 way Knapp and Michaels could have chosen a better example-- 21:09.980 --> 21:14.300 I think probably most of us would resist the idea that we 21:14.303 --> 21:17.163 can't interpret the bunch of marks. 21:17.160 --> 21:19.370 They're identical to language. 21:19.369 --> 21:21.799 We feel free to interpret them. 21:21.798 --> 21:24.248 After all, nobody knows what the poem means anyway! 21:24.250 --> 21:27.730 It's been the subject of critical controversy for 21:27.733 --> 21:28.463 decades. 21:28.460 --> 21:31.460 That's one of the reasons Knapp and Michaels choose it, 21:31.463 --> 21:33.693 and so okay, there it is on the beach. 21:33.690 --> 21:35.060 I'll have my stab at it. 21:35.058 --> 21:37.078 It must mean something, so here goes. 21:37.079 --> 21:39.999 And so we resist that. 21:40.000 --> 21:42.500 That's why I gave you this other example, 21:42.496 --> 21:46.366 because it seems to me that in a way, the other example is more 21:46.365 --> 21:49.295 compelling than that of Knapp and Michaels. 21:49.298 --> 21:52.718 [Points to handout.] Now you see these two ladies 21:52.719 --> 21:54.499 looking up at the tree. 21:54.500 --> 21:57.270 The upper--what do you call them? 21:57.269 --> 22:00.659 What do you call it when the branches are sawed off and 22:00.662 --> 22:03.492 eventually there's a kind of a scar formed? 22:03.490 --> 22:05.690 Student: A burl. 22:05.690 --> 22:06.820 Prof: Burl? 22:06.818 --> 22:11.978 The upper burl certainly looks an awful lot like Jesus, 22:11.977 --> 22:14.457 > 22:14.460 --> 22:19.650 and when this appeared in Milford about fifteen years ago, 22:19.651 --> 22:25.121 not just these two ladies but hundreds and hundreds of people 22:25.116 --> 22:27.026 visited the site. 22:27.028 --> 22:32.008 Now they, of course, believed that that was on the 22:32.013 --> 22:35.273 tree because God put it there. 22:35.269 --> 22:38.429 Therefore, it had meaning. 22:38.430 --> 22:40.510 We knew what it was. 22:40.509 --> 22:43.299 It was a representation of the face of Jesus, 22:43.298 --> 22:48.798 and the feeling that one could know what it was, 22:48.798 --> 22:51.408 interpret it, and take it to be an actual 22:51.413 --> 22:55.143 representation of something was therefore unquestioned. 22:55.140 --> 22:58.580 As we would all agree, you accept the premise: 22:58.577 --> 23:01.937 God wrote it or I should say put it there. 23:01.940 --> 23:06.940 He's been known to do the same thing with toasted cheese 23:06.943 --> 23:10.223 sandwiches and tacos, and it happens, 23:10.220 --> 23:11.130 right? 23:11.130 --> 23:15.190 You accept that premise and you're all set. 23:15.190 --> 23:18.340 But suppose you say, "No, no, 23:18.339 --> 23:19.199 no, no. 23:19.200 --> 23:20.550 God didn't write that. 23:20.549 --> 23:21.579 God didn't put that there. 23:21.579 --> 23:24.409 It's just an accident." 23:24.410 --> 23:27.180 Wouldn't you then say, "Oh, 23:27.180 --> 23:31.120 therefore it has no meaning, it's not a representation of 23:31.124 --> 23:33.734 anything, it just looks like 23:33.732 --> 23:35.402 something"? 23:35.400 --> 23:38.330 In other words, in this case-- 23:38.328 --> 23:40.528 however you feel about "A Slumber Did My Spirit 23:40.534 --> 23:42.604 Seal"-- in this case you would accept 23:42.604 --> 23:44.174 Knapp and Michaels's argument. 23:44.170 --> 23:47.450 You would say, "It really does depend on 23:47.445 --> 23:49.825 the inference of an intention. 23:49.828 --> 23:55.288 If I infer no intention, I ascribe no meaning. 23:55.288 --> 23:59.828 If I infer an intention, I ascribe meaning." 23:59.828 --> 24:03.168 So Knapp and Michaels are simply making the same argument 24:03.170 --> 24:05.910 about "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," 24:05.914 --> 24:08.544 and I think it's a very strong argument. 24:08.538 --> 24:12.298 Once you realize--or once, I should say, 24:12.298 --> 24:16.358 you accept the idea--that meaning just is intention and 24:16.358 --> 24:20.498 think about it etymologically-- when I say "I mean," 24:20.500 --> 24:22.770 that precisely means "I intend," 24:22.770 --> 24:23.270 right? 24:23.269 --> 24:26.429 It doesn't quite work that way in all languages, 24:26.430 --> 24:29.290 but it certainly works that way in English, 24:29.288 --> 24:33.128 and it's worth remembering to mean is "to 24:33.133 --> 24:36.553 intend" -- it makes a lot of sense to say 24:36.551 --> 24:40.591 that a meaning just is an intention and that it's perhaps 24:40.586 --> 24:44.836 against the grain of common sense to factor them apart, 24:44.838 --> 24:48.448 to say, "Well, I can see this sentence and I 24:48.450 --> 24:51.760 have a certain notion what it might mean, 24:51.759 --> 24:55.799 but I still don't know what the author intended to say," 24:55.803 --> 24:59.173 which is forbidden from the standpoint of Knapp and 24:59.173 --> 25:00.053 Michaels. 25:00.048 --> 25:02.398 Of course, you know what the author intended to say. 25:02.400 --> 25:04.240 You've just ascribed meaning to the sentence. 25:04.240 --> 25:06.670 Now mind you, you may be wrong, 25:06.674 --> 25:11.554 but that isn't to say that your being wrong hinges on knowing 25:11.545 --> 25:13.895 what the author intended. 25:13.900 --> 25:16.960 In a certain sense, Knapp and Michaels agree 25:16.964 --> 25:20.894 perfectly well with the New Critics and with Foucault or 25:20.886 --> 25:24.296 whoever it might be and say, "Well, you can never know 25:24.297 --> 25:25.387 what an author intended." 25:25.390 --> 25:27.300 But that's not the point. 25:27.298 --> 25:32.228 The meaning of the sentence in itself entails intention. 25:32.230 --> 25:37.340 If it weren't a sentence spoken intentionally by an agent, 25:37.338 --> 25:41.188 human or otherwise, it wouldn't have meaning 25:41.192 --> 25:44.422 because it wouldn't be language. 25:44.420 --> 25:49.750 In a certain sense this, then, can carry us to our 25:49.750 --> 25:55.730 second argument because, having established in their own 25:55.730 --> 26:01.710 minds satisfactorily that for any text the meaning of the text 26:01.712 --> 26:05.442 must just be its intention-- 26:05.440 --> 26:09.260 in other words, to be understood as language at 26:09.258 --> 26:11.688 all, to repeat myself once again, 26:11.692 --> 26:14.472 and to be understood as language at all, 26:14.470 --> 26:19.160 an intention needs to be inferred. 26:19.160 --> 26:23.910 The argument here is that we ought to be able to recognize, 26:23.910 --> 26:27.390 supposing we succeed in not inferring an 26:27.386 --> 26:30.446 intention, that what we are looking at is 26:30.452 --> 26:34.082 actually not language; it's just a simulacrum of 26:34.077 --> 26:38.177 language, an effective copy of language 26:38.183 --> 26:39.853 like, for example, 26:39.848 --> 26:44.078 the speech of a parrot or the words produced by monkeys on 26:44.076 --> 26:45.926 typewriters and so on. 26:45.930 --> 26:51.420 We should not from such simulacra of words infer not 26:51.423 --> 26:55.413 only intention but meaning as well. 26:55.410 --> 27:02.430 It is meaningless to speak of marks that are not signs as 27:02.430 --> 27:03.810 language. 27:03.808 --> 27:07.698 Bringing us to the notion of "sign": 27:07.699 --> 27:11.329 for C.S. Peirce, who actually discriminated 27:11.327 --> 27:15.647 among hundreds of different kinds of signs, 27:15.650 --> 27:20.550 all signs are active--that is to say, 27:20.548 --> 27:23.578 they have an agency, they have a purpose, 27:23.579 --> 27:25.529 they have a function. 27:25.528 --> 27:30.018 Peirce, in other words, does not understand them in the 27:30.020 --> 27:33.930 way that Saussure does as being differential. 27:33.930 --> 27:39.700 He understands that too, but for him the central point 27:39.702 --> 27:44.172 about a sign is the agency of the sign. 27:44.170 --> 27:48.790 Now the implication of this is clear, and it's the implication 27:48.788 --> 27:52.648 that Knapp and Michaels draw on in this argument. 27:52.650 --> 28:00.090 Their claim is that there is no distinction to be made between 28:00.094 --> 28:02.784 language and speech. 28:02.778 --> 28:07.468 Now let's just pause over their argument. 28:07.470 --> 28:11.020 I would think the fact that as we think about that-- 28:11.019 --> 28:14.629 especially since we have been exposed to Saussure and, 28:14.630 --> 28:19.910 I hope, have come to accept the idea that language is a virtual 28:19.909 --> 28:23.229 synchronic entity laid out in space, 28:23.230 --> 28:27.770 and speech is an actual diachronic performance derived 28:27.773 --> 28:32.903 from language laid out in time-- since we have absorbed that and 28:32.900 --> 28:36.680 since we just have this sort of spontaneous belief, 28:36.680 --> 28:38.570 if we're students of literary theory, 28:38.568 --> 28:42.928 that there is a distinction between language and speech: 28:42.929 --> 28:47.919 what do we do when we come face to face with this claim of Knapp 28:47.923 --> 28:49.433 and Michaels's? 28:49.430 --> 28:54.740 Now I think that they make their most effective case in a 28:54.737 --> 28:55.777 footnote. 28:55.779 --> 28:59.819 This is the last footnote I'll be calling your attention to 28:59.819 --> 29:02.819 this semester, and it's, like all footnotes, 29:02.816 --> 29:06.156 perhaps the most telling thing in the essay. 29:06.160 --> 29:13.560 It appears on page 084 in the copy center packet, 29:13.557 --> 29:17.407 footnote number twelve. 29:17.410 --> 29:19.830 I'm not going to read the whole thing. 29:19.828 --> 29:24.348 I'm just going to read a single sentence at the top their page 29:24.352 --> 29:26.822 twenty-one, footnote twelve, 29:26.816 --> 29:29.726 in which they say, "… 29:29.726 --> 29:31.976 [A] dictionary is an index of 29:31.979 --> 29:35.679 frequent usages in particular speech acts-- 29:35.680 --> 29:38.880 not a matrix of abstract, pre-intentional 29:38.880 --> 29:40.640 possibilities." 29:40.640 --> 29:41.760 Think about that. 29:41.759 --> 29:46.549 Language, we suppose, is, in addition to being a set 29:46.546 --> 29:52.366 of grammatical and syntactical rules, also a set of definitions 29:52.365 --> 29:55.645 made available for speech acts. 29:55.650 --> 30:00.010 That is the assumption that a course in literary theory 30:00.007 --> 30:01.457 provides for us. 30:01.460 --> 30:04.950 Knapp and Michaels are denying that in this footnote. 30:04.950 --> 30:09.940 They are saying that dictionary definitions are just a sum 30:09.941 --> 30:13.861 total, as it were, of words in action, 30:13.863 --> 30:19.623 that any definition is of a word which is already a 30:19.624 --> 30:21.044 speech act. 30:21.038 --> 30:25.538 You go through all eighteen definitions of a word. 30:25.538 --> 30:30.298 They're all of them embedded in sentences, speech acts, 30:30.295 --> 30:34.955 and can be taken out of sentences and still understood 30:34.962 --> 30:37.872 in their agency as performed. 30:37.868 --> 30:41.488 Any word in a dictionary, in other words, 30:41.490 --> 30:45.630 according to Knapp and Michaels, is a word performed, 30:45.630 --> 30:49.250 and the record fossilized, as it were, 30:49.250 --> 30:53.730 in the dictionary is a record not of meaning per se but 30:53.728 --> 30:57.928 of performance, of the way in which the word 30:57.932 --> 31:00.922 works in speech, in history. 31:00.920 --> 31:07.570 A dictionary is nothing other than a composite or a sum total 31:07.574 --> 31:09.464 of speech acts. 31:09.460 --> 31:13.760 To distinguish, therefore, between language as 31:13.762 --> 31:19.602 something which is pre-action and speech as the implementation 31:19.596 --> 31:22.366 of language is a mistake. 31:22.368 --> 31:27.078 Language, even in the sense that it's always there before 31:27.075 --> 31:30.095 us, is nevertheless always active. 31:30.098 --> 31:36.298 It is a record of those actions that have taken place before our 31:36.299 --> 31:38.859 own actions as speakers. 31:38.858 --> 31:42.738 There's no difference between me acting through speech and 31:42.739 --> 31:46.549 language preexisting as something which is not action. 31:46.548 --> 31:51.248 It's all continuous as an ever-deepening, 31:51.251 --> 31:56.191 broadening, and self-complicating record of 31:56.190 --> 31:59.600 action, or speech action. 31:59.598 --> 32:04.258 Now this is a very interesting idea and I think, 32:04.256 --> 32:10.296 again, it's an idea that one might well go a long way with. 32:10.298 --> 32:12.638 I think it should be said in defense of Saussure, 32:12.635 --> 32:15.165 by the way, that in a certain way he anticipates this 32:15.166 --> 32:15.796 position. 32:15.798 --> 32:19.288 Remember I told you that although for purposes of 32:19.288 --> 32:21.868 learning, to understand structuralism and 32:21.873 --> 32:24.803 its aftermath we only distinguish between language and 32:24.801 --> 32:26.301 speech, langue and 32:26.304 --> 32:28.254 parole, but in Saussure there's 32:28.250 --> 32:31.340 actually a third category, a sort of intermediate 32:31.336 --> 32:35.236 category, which he calls langage. Langage is 32:35.238 --> 32:38.728 actually the sum total of all known speech acts. 32:38.730 --> 32:43.480 If you could codify or quantify everything that's ever been said 32:43.478 --> 32:46.718 or written, that would be langage. 32:46.720 --> 32:49.230 You can see how it's different from langue, 32:49.226 --> 32:52.036 which needn't necessarily ever have been said at all. 32:52.038 --> 32:53.898 I'll be coming back to that in a minute. 32:53.900 --> 32:55.370 Langage, in other words, 32:55.365 --> 32:57.905 is "empirical," as Knapp and Michaels would 32:57.907 --> 32:58.297 say. 32:58.298 --> 33:02.128 It is something that, had we enough information, 33:02.128 --> 33:06.038 we could actually codify into a vast database. 33:06.038 --> 33:08.878 It would be the sum of all speech acts, 33:08.880 --> 33:11.090 and that actually, what Saussure calls 33:11.089 --> 33:14.209 langage, would be not unlike what Knapp 33:14.213 --> 33:17.123 and Michaels mean by language. 33:17.118 --> 33:22.078 Saussure is aware that you can think of the sum of speech acts 33:22.077 --> 33:25.407 in the way that Knapp and Michaels do, 33:25.410 --> 33:28.530 but he still holds out for this other category, 33:28.528 --> 33:35.718 this notion of langue as the code from which speech acts 33:35.720 --> 33:40.480 are derived, as a thing apart. 33:40.480 --> 33:44.750 Now I think, as I say, this is a persuasive 33:44.750 --> 33:47.410 position, because after all, 33:47.410 --> 33:51.010 as long as we suppose that language exists for 33:51.009 --> 33:54.939 communication, that it is interactive--as long 33:54.935 --> 33:57.445 as we accept, as we have accepted from 33:57.449 --> 34:00.339 Bakhtin and others during the course of the course-- 34:00.338 --> 34:05.858 the idea that language is social, that all of its 34:05.863 --> 34:12.663 deployments are interactive, derived from the speech acts of 34:12.661 --> 34:15.491 others, appropriated for oneself as 34:15.489 --> 34:19.279 one's own set of speech acts, and influential on yet other 34:19.275 --> 34:22.245 people as a speech act-- as long as we accept this, 34:22.246 --> 34:25.336 we say to ourselves, "Yeah, it makes a lot of 34:25.344 --> 34:28.834 sense to think of language as inseparable from speech, 34:28.829 --> 34:34.059 to think of language simply as the sum of all agencies so that 34:34.063 --> 34:38.953 no meaningful distinction between that sum of agencies and 34:38.952 --> 34:43.072 the individual agency of a speech act needs to be 34:43.070 --> 34:44.530 made." 34:44.530 --> 34:47.400 Notice though--and here, by the way, 34:47.400 --> 34:50.560 is where I'm going to make my turn and save theory, 34:50.559 --> 34:55.519 so sharpen your pencils!--notice that I began 34:55.523 --> 35:01.283 that last riff by saying "as long as we suppose 35:01.275 --> 35:06.235 language exists for communication." 35:06.239 --> 35:09.609 Now we do suppose language exists for 35:09.606 --> 35:10.856 communication. 35:10.860 --> 35:12.570 What else could it exist for? 35:12.570 --> 35:15.070 What do we do with language except to communicate? 35:15.070 --> 35:17.930 You could say, "Well, we write doodles. 35:17.929 --> 35:20.099 We make meaningless marks in the sand." 35:20.099 --> 35:23.119 There are all kinds of things that maybe we do with language, 35:23.117 --> 35:24.977 but let's face it: we don't, right? 35:24.980 --> 35:27.640 If I do, in fact, make marks in the sand 35:27.641 --> 35:31.261 amounting to "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," 35:31.260 --> 35:34.940 it's because I love Wordsworth, as by the way I do, 35:34.938 --> 35:38.918 and I wish to communicate that love to the rest of the world. 35:38.920 --> 35:40.400 It's a speech act. 35:40.400 --> 35:42.130 Come on, I'm not just making marks. 35:42.130 --> 35:45.760 If I wanted to make marks, I'd do something rather more 35:45.755 --> 35:47.565 mark-like [gesticulates]. 35:47.570 --> 35:49.840 Well, so > 35:49.840 --> 35:53.850 in any case, we certainly inhabit a life 35:53.846 --> 35:59.906 world in which it is almost inconceivable for anyone to come 35:59.907 --> 36:04.047 along and tell us, "Language is not for the 36:04.047 --> 36:06.007 purpose of communication." 36:06.010 --> 36:07.910 In other words, Knapp and Michaels seem to be 36:07.909 --> 36:08.729 completely right. 36:08.730 --> 36:11.260 What else is it for? 36:11.260 --> 36:12.980 That's what we use it for. 36:12.980 --> 36:18.260 We have refined it to a fare-thee-well as an efficient, 36:18.255 --> 36:22.355 flexible, sometimes even eloquent medium of 36:22.360 --> 36:24.120 communication. 36:24.119 --> 36:27.129 That's what language is for, that's what it exists for. 36:27.130 --> 36:30.250 As I'm saying, if we accept this idea-- 36:30.250 --> 36:32.670 which seems simply to carry the day, 36:32.670 --> 36:34.400 because who could think anything else?-- 36:34.400 --> 36:38.420 if we accept this idea, then there's a very strong case 36:38.416 --> 36:41.166 for Knapp and Michaels being right. 36:41.170 --> 36:45.420 Really there's no significant or important difference between 36:45.420 --> 36:46.980 language and speech. 36:46.980 --> 36:51.770 But now suppose we approach the question from a--I don't say 36:51.771 --> 36:56.321 from an empirical point of view > 36:56.320 --> 37:01.920 but from a speculative anthropological point of view. 37:01.920 --> 37:05.940 Suppose we approach it with some rather commonsense remarks. 37:05.940 --> 37:09.330 Now we say language is for communication; 37:09.329 --> 37:13.269 the purpose of language is for communication. 37:13.269 --> 37:16.719 We say that. 37:16.719 --> 37:22.019 Especially if we think of the whole history of mankind, 37:22.016 --> 37:27.606 does that mean that the purpose of fire is for cooking? 37:27.610 --> 37:31.290 Or to bring it a little bit closer to home, 37:31.293 --> 37:36.473 does it mean that the purpose of the prehensile thumb is for 37:36.469 --> 37:37.609 grasping? 37:37.610 --> 37:43.430 Does it mean that the purpose of a cave, a hole in the rock, 37:43.425 --> 37:45.195 is for dwelling? 37:45.199 --> 37:47.329 No. 37:47.329 --> 37:51.939 In those cases, adaptation is what makes fire a 37:51.942 --> 37:56.512 good thing to cook with, the prehensile thumb a good 37:56.512 --> 38:00.832 thing to grasp with, and a cave a good thing to take 38:00.833 --> 38:04.793 shelter in, but they all in their various 38:04.788 --> 38:06.798 ways are just there. 38:06.800 --> 38:10.040 Plainly, all of them have other, well, 38:10.039 --> 38:12.019 not "purposes," because a purpose is, 38:12.018 --> 38:14.518 when you think about it, only something that we can 38:14.518 --> 38:17.898 impose on something; but they certainly are not 38:17.903 --> 38:23.003 there in any sense for us to do the thing that it turns out 38:23.001 --> 38:27.221 we've decided it's a good idea to do with it. 38:27.219 --> 38:32.579 Fire burns us but we can cook with it, and so on. 38:32.579 --> 38:38.989 Now in the case of language, we have to suppose as a matter 38:38.994 --> 38:43.954 of fact that language, as it were, appeared among us 38:43.945 --> 38:47.485 in the same way that the prehensile thumb did. 38:47.489 --> 38:51.709 Of course we "discovered its use," 38:51.706 --> 38:55.136 but that's a funny way to put it. 38:55.139 --> 39:01.889 It might be more circumspect to say that we discovered it had a 39:01.885 --> 39:06.125 use for us which was to communicate, 39:06.130 --> 39:10.200 and so once we were able to put this-- 39:10.199 --> 39:13.289 whatever it was, this weird capacity to make 39:13.293 --> 39:17.923 differential sounds-- once we put this weird capacity 39:17.918 --> 39:21.558 to make differential sounds to work, 39:21.559 --> 39:28.629 henceforth for us and for our purposes language was there to 39:28.630 --> 39:30.310 communicate. 39:30.309 --> 39:33.259 Of course we made an enormous success of it, 39:33.260 --> 39:37.320 or a tower of Babel of it, whichever you prefer to think, 39:37.320 --> 39:42.280 but in any case we have it, and it has developed among us 39:42.280 --> 39:46.000 as a means of a medium of communication. 39:46.000 --> 39:53.510 But by whatever mutancy language arose, 39:53.510 --> 39:56.450 supposing this to be the case--and I'm not making an 39:56.447 --> 39:59.557 argument that has anything to do with "intelligent 39:59.557 --> 40:01.687 design" one way or another-- 40:01.690 --> 40:07.190 supposing that by whatever mutancy language appeared, 40:07.190 --> 40:10.140 then, of course, the next day there were an 40:10.141 --> 40:14.221 avalanche: then it might well be the case that this species 40:14.217 --> 40:18.497 consisting of all of us sitting in this room and I guess a few 40:18.503 --> 40:21.593 other people, > 40:21.590 --> 40:24.890 that this species might be mute. 40:24.889 --> 40:29.609 It might be communicating perhaps with incredible 40:29.606 --> 40:33.926 eloquence, perhaps even with literary genius, 40:33.931 --> 40:37.471 by means of signs or--who knows? 40:37.469 --> 40:41.449 Or for that matter it might have taken a detour in its 40:41.445 --> 40:45.265 development such that communication was not anything 40:45.273 --> 40:48.653 one could identify as specifically human. 40:48.650 --> 40:52.660 All sentient beings communicate, but it's possible 40:52.655 --> 40:57.395 that this particular species could have taken a turn in its 40:57.398 --> 41:01.808 development after which communication was much as it is 41:01.813 --> 41:04.843 among mice or ants or whatever. 41:04.840 --> 41:09.500 All of this is possible, you see, when we think about 41:09.498 --> 41:14.068 language--a property that we have and manipulate and 41:14.065 --> 41:17.645 communicate with--anthropologically. 41:17.650 --> 41:22.370 It comes into being in such a way that it is, 41:22.369 --> 41:26.979 I would think, scarcely relevant to say that 41:26.981 --> 41:30.951 its purpose is for communication. 41:30.949 --> 41:34.409 It comes into being simply as an attribute, 41:34.409 --> 41:38.869 a property, something we happen to have, 41:38.869 --> 41:43.899 something someone happens to have for which a use is then 41:43.902 --> 41:46.502 discovered, as for fire, 41:46.498 --> 41:51.298 for the prehensile thumb and for the cave. 41:51.300 --> 41:53.350 The relationship between the cave and the house, 41:53.349 --> 41:56.259 it seems to me, is a particularly interesting 41:56.255 --> 42:00.015 way of thinking about the relationship between language as 42:00.018 --> 42:03.318 a set of differentials and language as speech. 42:03.320 --> 42:06.930 Notice something about the signs of language--and here of 42:06.925 --> 42:09.045 course we also invoke Saussure. 42:09.050 --> 42:14.090 Saussure lays every stress on the idea that language is made 42:14.088 --> 42:17.588 up of differential and arbitrary signs. 42:17.590 --> 42:20.900 In other words, Saussure denies that there is 42:20.902 --> 42:24.292 such a thing in language as a natural sign. 42:24.289 --> 42:27.039 The Russian formalists do this as well. 42:27.039 --> 42:31.779 Both Saussure and the Russian formalists warn us against 42:31.775 --> 42:35.215 believing that onomatopoetic devices-- 42:35.219 --> 42:36.719 for example, "peep, peep, 42:36.721 --> 42:40.471 peep"--devices like that, are actually natural signs, 42:40.467 --> 42:43.397 that they are derived, in other words, 42:43.400 --> 42:47.510 from the thing in the world that they seem through their 42:47.507 --> 42:49.147 sound to represent. 42:49.150 --> 42:53.550 Saussure reminds us that these are accidents of etymological 42:53.548 --> 42:57.798 history which can also be understood in adaptive terms. 42:57.800 --> 43:00.830 Onomatopoeia exists in language because it's good for 43:00.833 --> 43:03.753 communication and it's fun to communicate with, 43:03.750 --> 43:07.470 but it doesn't enter language as a natural sign. 43:07.469 --> 43:11.959 It only passes through moments--in the evolution of a 43:11.960 --> 43:15.050 given word-- it only passes through moments 43:15.048 --> 43:18.558 in which the relationship between the sound and the thing 43:18.556 --> 43:20.746 represented seems to be natural. 43:20.750 --> 43:25.340 This is a matter upon which great stress is laid both in 43:25.338 --> 43:28.758 Saussure and in the Russian formalists. 43:28.760 --> 43:33.240 When you read these passages in which such stress is laid on it 43:33.242 --> 43:36.572 you may have thought: well, that's overkill. 43:36.570 --> 43:39.310 Who cares about onomatopoeia? 43:39.309 --> 43:44.159 Well, it anchors the entire idea about language, 43:44.163 --> 43:50.363 which is precisely that it is something other than speech. 43:50.360 --> 43:54.440 When we speak, we not only endeavor to 43:54.443 --> 43:57.913 communicate; we endeavor to refer. 43:57.909 --> 44:01.009 In other words, we take language and we try to 44:01.005 --> 44:04.785 make it, as the philosophers say, hook on to the natural 44:04.791 --> 44:05.481 world. 44:05.480 --> 44:10.150 We take a set of signs, a code which is not in itself 44:10.150 --> 44:12.740 natural, which is arbitrary, 44:12.735 --> 44:15.925 and through the sheer force of will, 44:15.929 --> 44:20.789 we make those signs as best we can hook on to the natural, 44:20.789 --> 44:22.289 to the actual world. 44:22.289 --> 44:25.659 In doing so, we reinforce the idea that 44:25.664 --> 44:29.844 language is for communication--whereas my 44:29.838 --> 44:34.188 argument is language isn't for communication; 44:34.190 --> 44:36.400 speech is. 44:36.400 --> 44:39.310 When we speak, that is--entirely and 44:39.309 --> 44:42.969 exclusively and without any other motive-- 44:42.969 --> 44:46.329 for communication, except for one thing that the 44:46.329 --> 44:49.759 Russian formalists in particular took note of. 44:49.760 --> 44:53.700 There are funny things going on in our speech-- 44:53.699 --> 44:58.069 alliteration, unnecessary or uneconomical 44:58.074 --> 45:02.624 forms of repetition-- weird things going on in our 45:02.621 --> 45:07.121 speech which don't seem to have the purpose of communication. 45:07.119 --> 45:09.849 As a matter of fact, they actually seem to impede 45:09.849 --> 45:10.759 communication. 45:10.760 --> 45:15.140 When I really start messing language up-- 45:15.139 --> 45:17.459 for example, in Lewis Carroll's "'Twas 45:17.458 --> 45:20.608 brillig, and the slithy toves / did gyre and gimble in the 45:20.606 --> 45:23.966 wabe"-- I am impeding communication 45:23.974 --> 45:28.674 because I am laying stress on elements of rhythm, 45:28.670 --> 45:33.720 pattern, and sound recurrence which cannot be said to have any 45:33.722 --> 45:36.542 direct bearing on communication. 45:36.539 --> 45:38.279 This, of course, is what we've studied 45:38.284 --> 45:39.704 recurrently and, I have to say, 45:39.697 --> 45:41.487 empirically > 45:41.489 --> 45:44.819 because these are all empirical facts about language, 45:44.820 --> 45:47.190 as the Russian formalists insisted. 45:47.190 --> 45:52.070 What we have studied recurrently is the way in which 45:52.070 --> 45:56.090 language rears its ugly head in speech, 45:56.090 --> 45:59.850 the way in which, in other words, 45:59.853 --> 46:06.093 language won't be repressed as mere communication, 46:06.090 --> 46:10.990 the way in which speech entails elements that keep bubbling up 46:10.992 --> 46:14.452 to the surface and asserting themselves, 46:14.449 --> 46:19.889 which oddly enough really can't be said to conduce to 46:19.893 --> 46:21.573 communication. 46:21.570 --> 46:24.690 Those things, those elements that bubble up 46:24.692 --> 46:29.822 to the surface, are nothing other than evidence 46:29.820 --> 46:36.810 of the presence of language, precisely in the way that in 46:36.807 --> 46:41.237 Freud the Freudian slip-- the fact that I can't get 46:41.239 --> 46:44.319 through a sentence without making some kind of blunder, 46:44.320 --> 46:49.470 very often an embarrassing blunder-- 46:49.469 --> 46:55.839 is understood as the bubbling up into the conscious effort to 46:55.844 --> 47:00.524 speak of that which speech can't control, 47:00.518 --> 47:05.018 of that which Freud calls "the unconscious" 47:05.023 --> 47:08.723 and which, by the way, we would have no 47:08.719 --> 47:14.409 idea of the existence of if it weren't for the Freudian slip. 47:14.409 --> 47:16.939 In other words, as Freud said in the first 47:16.943 --> 47:20.653 handout that I gave you at the beginning of the semester, 47:20.650 --> 47:26.840 we infer the unconscious from the behavior of consciousness 47:26.844 --> 47:30.044 because, given the erratic nature of the 47:30.041 --> 47:35.021 behavior of consciousness, it seems necessary to do so. 47:35.018 --> 47:38.368 By precisely the same token, we can and, 47:38.369 --> 47:41.909 I think we should say, we do infer language as 47:41.914 --> 47:46.804 something else from the composite or sum total of speech 47:46.800 --> 47:47.510 acts. 47:47.510 --> 47:52.860 We infer language from the erratic behavior of speech 47:52.855 --> 47:58.605 because it seems there is no other way to account for the 47:58.612 --> 48:01.802 erratic behavior of speech. 48:01.800 --> 48:06.630 That sense of language, which I'm going to be talking a 48:06.634 --> 48:11.894 lot more about on Thursday, sort of bubbling up and from 48:11.887 --> 48:15.737 below in speech, and proving its existence as 48:15.744 --> 48:20.314 something other than a composite record of all speeches, 48:20.309 --> 48:24.249 is what suggests to us that Knapp and Michaels are not quite 48:24.251 --> 48:28.331 right in saying there is really no difference between language 48:28.327 --> 48:31.047 and speech; that if there is a difference 48:31.054 --> 48:34.034 between language and speech, as I am claiming, 48:34.025 --> 48:38.135 and if the difference between language and speech is much as 48:38.141 --> 48:41.841 we have been taught to think of it by Saussure and his 48:41.840 --> 48:44.980 successors down through deconstruction-- 48:44.980 --> 48:47.940 if there is such a difference, then guess what? 48:47.940 --> 48:50.950 We have literary theory back in the fold, 48:50.949 --> 48:53.589 alive and well, and we no longer have to say 48:53.592 --> 48:56.732 that it should be jettisoned from our thinking about 48:56.726 --> 48:57.646 literature. 48:57.650 --> 49:00.800 We have a real use for literary theory. 49:00.800 --> 49:03.040 But that's exactly where Knapp and Michaels, 49:03.039 --> 49:06.109 supposing they were here and I'd convinced them--by the way, 49:06.114 --> 49:07.214 I know them both. 49:07.210 --> 49:09.590 You can't convince them of anything, but that's not 49:09.592 --> 49:10.072 unusual. 49:10.070 --> 49:14.140 You probably can't convince me of anything either--suppose we 49:14.139 --> 49:17.869 had them here and I had succeeded in convincing them. 49:17.869 --> 49:19.909 They would say, "Well, okay, 49:19.907 --> 49:21.307 but isn't it a pity? 49:21.309 --> 49:26.959 Because you have proved better than we did that literary theory 49:26.960 --> 49:28.510 has no purpose. 49:28.510 --> 49:32.510 Why on earth should we worry about all this bubbling up of 49:32.514 --> 49:36.034 stuff that has nothing to do with communication? 49:36.030 --> 49:38.240 After all, we're here to communicate, aren't we? 49:38.239 --> 49:41.789 We've begun by saying that our life world consists precisely in 49:41.789 --> 49:44.539 the deployment of language for communication, 49:44.539 --> 49:47.569 and here is this person saying there is this stuff bubbling up, 49:47.570 --> 49:51.160 which makes communication difficult. 49:51.159 --> 49:53.549 What use is that?" 49:53.550 --> 49:55.440 Knapp and Michaels might say. 49:55.440 --> 49:58.070 You see, they are pragmatists, aren't they? 49:58.070 --> 50:02.310 They are pragmatists, or they are concerned with 50:02.306 --> 50:03.656 practicality. 50:03.659 --> 50:06.469 Their interest, their reason for being 50:06.472 --> 50:09.822 interested in meaning and interpretation, 50:09.820 --> 50:16.120 is a practical reason entirely entailed in the understanding of 50:16.121 --> 50:21.511 communication and the furtherance of communication; 50:21.510 --> 50:25.210 whereas theory, which I have saved, 50:25.210 --> 50:29.630 I nevertheless seem to have saved at a pretty considerable 50:29.632 --> 50:34.372 cost because I have suggested that theory itself is completely 50:34.367 --> 50:35.607 impractical. 50:35.610 --> 50:38.370 I have suggested it, and we're going to get back to 50:38.371 --> 50:39.311 that next time. 50:39.309 --> 50:42.089 That's what the Thursday lecture is going to be about. 50:42.090 --> 50:45.020 In the meantime you say to yourself, "Okay, 50:45.023 --> 50:45.463 fine. 50:45.460 --> 50:47.470 We've got theory, but we have also been shown 50:47.467 --> 50:49.517 that you can't really do anything with it, 50:49.518 --> 50:54.158 and so it might just as well suit us to suppose that Knapp 50:54.161 --> 50:58.971 and Michaels are right and to proceed as though theory could 50:58.965 --> 51:00.915 be jettisoned." 51:00.920 --> 51:04.420 One last quick point, going back to the distinction 51:04.420 --> 51:08.060 between meaning and intention: notice the two-pronged 51:08.059 --> 51:08.969 argument. 51:08.969 --> 51:11.109 On the one hand, there are people like 51:11.106 --> 51:14.226 E.D. Hirsch who believe that you can invoke an author's 51:14.226 --> 51:16.996 intention in order to pin down a meaning-- 51:17.000 --> 51:20.040 on the one hand, you have people like that and, 51:20.039 --> 51:22.379 on the other hand, you have people doing 51:22.380 --> 51:25.560 deconstruction who say that because there is no 51:25.559 --> 51:28.649 inferable intention, texts themselves have no 51:28.652 --> 51:29.252 meaning. 51:29.250 --> 51:31.470 But that's not quite right, 51:31.474 --> 51:35.054 because that's not really what deconstruction says. 51:35.050 --> 51:38.320 Deconstruction doesn't say texts have no meaning. 51:38.320 --> 51:42.590 Deconstruction doesn't even say that you can't know what the 51:42.585 --> 51:44.895 meaning of a text is, exactly. 51:44.900 --> 51:48.920 What deconstruction says is that you can't rope off 51:48.918 --> 51:50.328 meaning in a text. 51:50.329 --> 51:53.479 Texts have too much meaning. 51:53.480 --> 51:56.200 Texts explode with meaning. 51:56.199 --> 52:01.559 You can't corral the way in which texts produce meaning. 52:01.559 --> 52:04.829 You can't corral it by inferring an intention. 52:04.829 --> 52:09.299 You can't corral it by taking a particular interpretive path. 52:09.300 --> 52:12.570 Meaning just explodes in texts. 52:12.570 --> 52:16.420 That's not at all the same thing as to say, 52:16.420 --> 52:19.440 according to the claim of Knapp and Michaels, 52:19.440 --> 52:23.230 that in deconstructive thinking texts have no meaning-- 52:23.230 --> 52:26.010 a very, very different proposition altogether. 52:26.010 --> 52:29.900 I think it might suggest to you that the relationship between 52:29.902 --> 52:33.282 intention and meaning isn't really what's at stake in 52:33.277 --> 52:34.507 deconstruction. 52:34.510 --> 52:38.310 A text is intended, or you can say, 52:38.309 --> 52:41.589 "Well, it may be intended, no doubt it's intended"-- 52:41.590 --> 52:43.910 all sorts of ways of putting it, but is that really the 52:43.914 --> 52:44.264 point? 52:44.260 --> 52:47.710 The text is the text on my view, and the text, 52:47.710 --> 52:50.570 just as I say, fairly bristles with meaning, 52:50.565 --> 52:52.885 that being precisely the point. 52:52.889 --> 52:54.649 You can't rein it in. 52:54.650 --> 52:58.800 That's not really the flip side--as Knapp and Michaels 52:58.798 --> 53:02.788 would want to make you think–that's not really 53:02.793 --> 53:07.413 the flip side of the idea of the followers of Hirsch that in 53:07.411 --> 53:11.621 order to know a meaning, you have to be able to infer an 53:11.615 --> 53:12.815 authorial intention. 53:12.820 --> 53:15.430 There is no symmetry there and, 53:15.429 --> 53:17.979 as I say, I'm not sure that deconstruction, 53:17.980 --> 53:20.340 whatever its claims, whatever its perfections and 53:20.342 --> 53:22.742 imperfections-- I am not sure that really 53:22.744 --> 53:26.374 deconstruction has the question of intention in relation to 53:26.373 --> 53:29.443 meaning very much at heart one way or another. 53:29.440 --> 53:30.530 Sorry to have kept you. 53:30.530 --> 53:31.580 We'll see you Thursday. 53:31.579 --> 53:36.999