[lit-ideas] The Natural History of the Pig

From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 11:09:00 EDT

Bioy Casares wrote a book, turned into a film, "The War of the Pig".

In a message dated 7/6/2009 9:05:25 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jwager@xxxxxxxxxx writes:

There is a lot of Jewish meaning in "logos." In Genesis, when Adam
"names" the animals, it's an exercise in determining not just their
names, but their natures. Think "classification" as well as proper
names here. To give something its proper name is to be able to
see its place in creation, to have control and dominion over it. (This
still forms a lot of what is called "magical" thinking, or just plain
old-fashioned "magic." To cast a spell, one must know the right names.)

----

I agree with Geary that this must be parabolic. And I cannot think that he
named each virus and bacteria. I guess he just named the bigger animals
(giraffe, etc.).

Oddly enough, this Lit-Ideas thread thus combines with the recent one
about "wet." We are trying to understand the "name" of water,
that is, to understand its primary "nature," its "essence."
Ah, Plato again. He was, after all, a poet before Socrates seduced him
into philosophy. Plato still retains more of the poet than
that of the logician. In most of the dialogues, just when Plato is about
to reveal the "essence" (the "name") of the true form, he
gives up. Instead, he tells a story! He becomes a poet! Just when you
are expecting logos, you get mythos instead. The "allegory
of the cave" is the "solution" to the problem of justice. Ah, but it's
just a story, not itself the nature of justice.

Yes, and there is this connection also with Thales

"In the beginning was the Water"

Water has been used by Kripke as an analysis of 'rigid designator' (a male
conception, if ever there was one).

H20 = H20

in a world where 'water' would be composed of different 'elements' we
should call it schwater.

----

""Reason" here again means "essence" as much as it means "logic." It's
out of fashion now to think that
philosophers grasp the essential nature of things, but scientists still
haven't given up on it. To take the
currently discussed "pig" example: A "pig" is a pig because its nature
is to consume slop. We call something
a "pig" because it has that nature. A Sequoia tree is not a pig because
a Sequoia tree does
NOT consume slop."

----- I see.

for further study when we have the time:

The expected form in Old English would be *picga, *pigga, a weak masculine
noun corresponding to other animal names, e.g. docga DOG n.1, frocga,
frogga FROG n.1 and adj., hocga, hogga HOG n.1 (see discussion at DOG n.1).
However, the word is attested only once in Old English, in the compound
picbred (for picgbrad; < PIG n.1 + BREAD n.; with the shortened combining form
compare gum-cynn, sunn-bam, etc., and with pic- for picg- compare the
spelling bric-bot (for brycg-bt repairing of bridges)); with the use of
picbred to
gloss classical Latin glns acorn, compare the following Latin gloss from
an Old High German MS: glans, fructus quercus : cibus porcorum (see E.
Steinmeyer& E. Sievers Die althochdeutschen Glossen (1895) III. 336).
There are strikingly similar forms in Dutch, and it seems unlikely that
the resemblance is purely coincidental, but no satisfactory explanation of
the variation in form has been found. Compare Middle Dutch (western Holland),
bagge (15th cent.), Middle Dutch (eastern) pogge, Middle Dutch pegsken,
puggen (both in Teuthonista(1477)), Middle Dutch, Dutch regional (Flanders)
vigghe, early modern Dutch bigge (1569), pigge (1599), Dutch regional
(northern) pogge, Dutch big, biggele, biggeken, biggetje, all in sense ‘young
pig’
; also Middle Low German bachelken, baggelken, German regional (Low German)
Pogge, Bigg. The Middle Dutch surname Bicghe (1266) may also be related.
Further connections have been suggested for a number of these words, but
these encounter the fundamental difficulty that it is impossible to know which
of the forms is primary (if indeed they are directly related). One
possibility is that they might all ultimately show borrowing from a common
(perhaps substratal) source. Another possibility is that a pattern of very
localized transmission occurred, with widespread variation in form arising as a
word which probably had a very familiar, affective character spread from one
locality to another as a familiar, household term.
A connection has also been suggested with Old Swedish pigger (Swedish
pigg) spike, point, but this seems very remote semantically.
With sense 4 perhaps compare French cochon physically or morally coarse
person, although this is first attested considerably later (end of the 17th
cent.); similar uses are found in a number of other languages.
With sense 9 compare slightly earlier SQUEALER n. 2b.
Attested early in nicknames and surnames, as Aluricus Piga (1066), Wulfric
Pig (c1133), Johannis Pig (1186), Jordanus Pigman (1190), Ricardus Pyg
(1268), and in place names, as Pyggeuorde (1296; now Pickeforde, Sussex).]
I. The animal.
1. a. An omnivorous, domesticated even-toed ungulate derived from the wild
boar Sus scrofa, with a stout body, sparse bristly hair, and a broad flat
snout for rooting in the soil, kept as a source of bacon, ham, pork, etc.
Also with distinguishing word to specify the breed.
The term pig is here used regardless of the age and sex of the animal (cf.
sense 2a), but clear examples of this use are uncommon before the 19th
cent.
Recorded earliest in pig bread n. at Compounds 2a.
OE Antwerp Gloss. 198 Glanx, glandis, picbred. c1387-95 CHAUCER Canterbury
Tales Prol. 700 In a glas he hadde pigges bones.

---end of OED quote

"(The "Logos" ideal is actually found in lots of strange places. The U.S.
Supreme Court seems to have made
an indirect appeal to it in Roe-v-Wade abortion decision. The fetus at
first has a "vegetative" nature (or "soul"
if you will), making it not yet human. At first the fetus consumes
nutrients and grows. It out-grows that early
vegetative soul and develops into what might be called "animal" soul
somewhere along the way, which is
capable of movement and response to the environment. Aquinas thought
this "quickening" was probably the
most likely place to begin to talk about the fetus being "human." But at
some point before birth, but after
the development of the animal soul, the "rational" soul develops, and at
birth we have a human being,
not a plant or a pig.)."

I see. I actually follow Anne Coulter when we can say that this
abortion-doctor was 'terminated' on the 123rd term, if that's what she said. I
haven't done the mathematics.

But I love your taking Aristotle so serious. I love his idea of the
'gradual series' and I agree with it mostly. Oddly, in Alice in Wonderland, the
Duchess is lullabying a baby who turns into a pig, right?

The curly-tale thing should be a mythos or Jungian archetype. Also, if a
woman (like Minotauro's mother) makes love to a pig, the result would be
almost a pig, with a curly tail, and I still would NOT kill it: having an
animal soul is dignified enough. If she spawns a cabbage I wouldn't kill it
either. Or a stone. For surely we cannot kill a stone.

Cheers,

J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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[lit-ideas] The Natural History of the Pig

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