[lit-ideas] Re: Must the Word be Literate?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 16:51:58 +0100 (BST)
--- John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > John wants to know whether pre-literate peoples believed in word-magic.
>
> No, that isn't the question. I know that preliterate and/or illiterate
> people use words in what have been described as magical ways. What I
> am inquiring about is the belief that only absolutely right words said
> in the absolutely right way are effective because they have a peculiar
> relationship to the absolute Truth.
<snip>
> I still don't find a clear
> statement that the words must be what they are because that reflects
> the true nature of things.
Is this question not somewhat naively put?
1) A religion or superstition may or may not claim that its 'rites',
including linguistic 'rites', correspond to some "absolute Truth" - but what
kind of claim is this, or is its denial? It is surely a claim that is highly
metaphysical and indeed perhaps itself of a kind of religious or
superstitious character. The denial that any such 'rites' correspond to any
kind of "absolute Truth" is surely an equal abstraction? A 'rite' may be
enacted in and believed in without thought of whether and in what way it
"reflects" or corresponds to "the true nature of things" - that is, its force
and validity may not be underpinned by any further metaphysical speculation.
A 'rite' may be philosophically naive and it may therefore be naive to seek
to analyse its underlying 'philosophy' or 'metaphysics'.
2) The idea of a performative utterance may be used here. As with the words
said at a wedding or in the giving of sacraments, or as in the words of a
contract, the words do not need to reflect some outside reality in the sense
of seeking as propositions to correspond to some "absolute Truth" and where
their validity depends on any such correspondence - rather the words are what
constitute the said act. End of.
Donal
Did intend saying something on the normalvs.revolutionary post and may yet do
so
But (a) Kuhn's position has seemingly shifted in his writings after TSOSR;
(b) Popper agrees that Kuhn's normal science has hit on something important
though Popper finds it an unwelcome development - and the character of what
they dispute is not easy to identify; (c) there is at least one *book* just
dealing with this dispute - so what I might say in a paragraph or two might
not be worth much (as usual, yes I heard you at the back Walter).
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