17.1590, Review: Philosophy of Lang: Mladenov (2005)

[linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG]

LINGUIST List: Vol-17-1590. Wed May 24 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.1590, Review: Philosophy of Lang: Mladenov (2005)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Dooley, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Lindsay Butler <lindsay at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our
supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We
welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite
the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. To start a discussion of
this book, you can use the Discussion form on the LINGUIST List website. For
the subject of the discussion, specify "Book Review" and the issue number of
this review. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for
the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and
follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the
book review staff directly.


===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 23-May-2006
From: Andrea Kenesei < keneseia at freemail.hu >
Subject: Conceptualizing Metaphors: On Charles Peirce's Marginalia 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 21:25:54
From: Andrea Kenesei < keneseia at freemail.hu >
Subject: Conceptualizing Metaphors: On Charles Peirce's Marginalia 
 

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2577.html 

AUTHOR: Mladenov, Ivan
TITLE: Conceptualizing Metaphors
SUBTITLE: On Charles Peirce's marginalia
SERIES: Routledge Studies in Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor & Francis)
YEAR: 2005

Andrea Kenesei, University of Veszprém

The enigmatic thought of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), considered 
by many to be one of the great philosophers of all time, involves 
inquiry not only into virtually all branches and sources of modern 
semiotics, physics, cognitive sciences, and mathematics, but also 
logic, which he understood to be the only useful approach to the riddle 
of reality. This book represents an attempt to outline an analytical 
method based on Charles Peirce's least explored branch of 
philosophy, which is his evolutionary cosmology, and his notion that 
the universe as made of an 'effete mind.' The chief argument 
conceives of human discourse as a giant metaphor in regard to 
outside reality. The metaphors arise in our imagination as lightning-
fast schemes of acting, speaking, or thinking. To prove this, each 
chapter will present a well-known metaphor and explain how it is 
unfolded and conceptualized according to the new method for 
revealing meaning. This original work will interest students and 
scholars in many fields including semiotics, linguistics and philosophy.

Andrea Kenesei, Department of English & American Studies, Pannon 
University (Veszprem), Hungary

Summary: Mladenov (IM) writes a book on the development on 
Peirce's (CP) ideas rather than on his oeuvre. He grounds his 
thoughts about metaphors on P's marginal ideas, which he wishes to 
outline as part of a novel theory of meaning. He enumerates the 
hardships of this task as follows: Firstly, a book is either a summary of 
a philosopher's life-work or it contains afterthoughts generated by this 
oeuvre, and secondly, IM fears that he might follow the wrong path 
due to incidental misunderstandings of Peirce's ideas. M's 
continuation of P's philosophy rests on three main points: 1. Meaning 
can be represented through metaphors only. 2. There is an urge to 
rest heavily on interdisciplinary research. 3. Metaphors are to be 
involved in scientific as well as everyday communication. ''Science is 
an overconceptualized metaphor'' (p. ix.). IM states that P's work is 
thought to be unfinished and to have inconsistencies, however, it 
greatly entails much to (re)consider.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Introduction -- P's philosophy accomplishes much without being 
completed; he analyses metaphors without an ardent fetishism of 
them; he connects and separates scientific and poetic 
conceptualisation; he talks of spiritual consciousness, which is 
polemics in itself; phaneroscopy (collective pure experience) and 
synechism (continuity) denote opposite notions as the former, unlike 
the latter, must refer to stability; the laws of nature are not absolute 
but they represent natural classes; the indetermination between the 
idealistic (an enhanced reliance on the mind) and the realistic; feelings 
are universal and inexplicable; metaphors are based on comparison 
and concepts are based on resemblance -- how are metaphors 
conceptualised?; objective idealism is a paradox and its key notion, 
the effete mind, is not elaborated upon in detail--these are the 
questions with which IM commences his book.

1. The theoretical framework of the forsaken ideas: what was 
abandoned and what was expanded? -- This chapter gives an 
account of the past; P's works and ideas are reflected upon from 
others' perspectives. The heritage of Kant is presented in Murphey's 
interpretation, which IM finds too critical as Murphey does not acquit 
CP of the hiatus in his definition of the incomplete cognition due to the 
unstable link of sign and object. Murphey's accusation that CP falsely 
believes in the generalisation of thought is groundless -- as recent 
psychological and psycholinguistic research has proven it to be the 
case (Bartlett 1932, van Dijk & Kintsch 1983, Anderson & Pichert 
1978, Andor 1985, Beaugrande 1987, Fauconnier & Turner 2002, 
Sperber & Wilson 1986). P's view of cognition is idealistic in the sense 
that it takes place in the form of mental concepts, which can never 
truly reflect the world, and it is objective in the sense that the process 
starts from reality and returns to it in the form of facts, which are the 
productions of the dialogically borne ideas. That CP reached 
philosophy through science explains his analogical approach to sign 
and reality -- the architectonic principle of formal logic (borrowed from 
Kant), which is the scientific systematisation of knowledge. P's 
pragmatism is based on a functional relevance -- objects exert effects 
on the mind and IM rightfully supports this view. Also, CP claims that 
conceptualisation is always relative, which supports his belief in a 
pragmatism not based on truth-falsity. IM says that it is William James 
who carries on this theory but mention should be made of Austin 
(1962) too, among others. P's insistence on the relative nature of 
concepts is as clear (for me) as a diamond. According to P, it is only 
human perception that verifies the occurrence of physical events; 
without perception there is no event -- this is what he calls synechism. 
It is the interpretant whose interpretation produces the sign itself. 
Even IM asserts that CP does not elaborate on the notion of 
the ''effete mind'', however, his claims that cognition is based on 
perception and that interpretation actualises existence are 
satisfactorily grounded and explained. The innate nature of thought is 
presented as an axiom and despite of the biological references CP 
makes this innateness is not answered -- (will be once when brain 
researchers can produce adequate evidence of the operation of the 
mind). P's referential relations are partially reiterated in Bühler's 
language functions -- with the interpretant's role running parallel with 
the importance of context. The triad of term, proposition and argument 
returns in Austin's tripartite system of intention, message and effect. 
P's view of memory and behaviour is later collapsed to the idea of 
abstract mental concepts, which are generalised inferences. What he 
calls the spontaneity of the mind is actually the flexibility that enables 
thinking by relating the relevant parts of relevant concepts. 

2. The categories, the ground and the silent effects -- P's iconic, 
indexical and symbolic representations are described, which are 
invented to provide the denotational and connotational aspects of 
meaning. The ground of the sign is not elaborated by P, and, as he 
projects in his introduction, IM provides his explorations. Firstness, 
Secondness and Thirdness refer to the matter, the mind and God, 
respectively. The ground is related to the matter like creativity to 
potentiality. That the ground appears differently for different people 
suits conceptualisation, which is necessarily always individual. 
However, it is hard to imagine the ground as devoid of the mind just 
like interpretation detaching the self from its consciousness. 
Knowledge is thought to be iconic and its representation symbolic. 

3. Unlimited semiosis and heteroglossia: CP and M.M. Bakhtin -- The 
comparison of the two must start with the reminder that CP relies on 
purely scientific readings whereas Bakhtin on literature, especially 
Dostoevsky. The dialogue for Bakhtin is analogous with CP's 
interpretation -- there is progressive movement and interdependency 
in both. The question to be answered is how signs are processed to 
arrive at impressions and what differentiates impressions and 
perceptions? The recent notion of concepts as stereotypical units is 
borne out of P's featuring them universal and general. At this point we 
feel the lack of references to recent findings concerning mental 
conceptualisation -- IM remains in the circle of CP and his interpreters 
but makes no reference to the broader sphere of conceptual 
research. He ought to do so because CP is one of the founders of the 
theory of mind. IM speaks of the ''tracks of the effete mind'', which is 
insufficient for our purposes. It is obvious to give priority to 
interpretation of signs as interpretation is nothing but a continuous 
adaptation of and adjustment to context. What is constant is variability 
and change. The infinity of interpretations is due not only to the partial 
relation of sign and object but the constant movement of the 
environment. Interpretation is also the process of translation: ''reading 
is the achievement of primary experience; translation can be seen as 
the rearticulation of the experience and interpretation constitutes part 
of both'' (Kenesei 2005: 66). P's network of sign-reality connections 
returns in the model of the Hungarian semiotician, J.S. Pet?fi (2005). 
Biologically speaking, brain research supports the early views that 
thinking and language starts with visual perception in the brain. Both 
CP and Bakhtin reach a consensus over the power of dialogue that 
relates signs, let it be the Third=God=I or Other. Moreover, this 
dialogue is more than binary -- context-dependent interpretation plays 
the role of the third element. Literature is capable of altering the 
intricate net of interpretations into a chain-like sequence (frozen 
semiosis), which forces the reader to have a more precise 
understanding of the author's intention. 

4. The living mind and the effete mind -- What activates the passive 
mind and makes it work? The old question will be left unanswered for 
a long time. We can start contemplating about the location of the 
power that enlivens matter -- is endophoric or exophoric to the body? 
No wonder that CP failed to elaborate the effete mind as it is the living 
mind that can be observed through its operation. The effete mind is 
the warehouse of past experiences in the form of clichés and habits, 
which are activated by present events. As a result, they do not show 
themselves until there is an activation, which fact disables us to reveal 
them. The past cannot be studied without the present. Therefore, the 
accusation against CP is ungrounded. That CP emphasises continuity 
proves that there is constant movement between the effete and the 
living minds, making them inseparable and impossible to investigate as 
disparate units. At this point, together with the inability of the inferior 
language to express the depths of mental operations, we realise that 
P's contribution to the investigations into mind is great, though does 
not bear much fruit. In defence of him, however, we must add that the 
basic questions may never be answered by man. I do not agree with 
IM when he wants to see the effete mind mediating between mental 
and natural; the effete mind, in my interpretation, is fully mental 
because, as said above, it contains then-present information. If we 
want to separate effete and living minds, we have to set up a temporal 
borderline and in doing so we immediately realise its impossibility as 
time never stops. Then which is the point that detaches the living from 
the effete? I would not call the effete mind ''exhausted consciousness'' 
either as exhausted projects finiteness. Our present moves are 
determined by past experience, which means that they do not lose 
their vitality or lay down. The past is embedded in the present just like 
the present in the future. I would definitely not call the effete 
mind ''dubious'', ''sceptical'' or ''uncertain''; if this was true, we should 
say the same of the living mind too. This is the same problem of 
separating events and feelings -- I claim that feelings are abstracted 
actions, in other words, they are event-related emotional concepts. At 
this point I do not separate events that happen to us and our 
conscious actions. I treat them as distinct concepts as they are based 
on several events -- different events may induce similar feelings. 
Today we speak of mental concepts such as frames, scenes or 
scripts -- I like to introduce a novel concept which I call ''picture'' -- an 
event-related emotional abstraction (Kenesei 2005). Here I am not 
speaking of the mental receding back to the matter because I cannot 
explain the inexplicable that makes matter organic. P's division of 
sciences is impressive, however, if the basis of everything is 
mathematics, it seems that we give priority to matter. I would treat 
mathematics as one of the components of the miraculous organising 
power and energy. 

5. The iceberg and the crystal mind -- The example of the Titanic can 
be interpreted as the distinction between directly and indirectly gained 
experiences; obviously, Titanic represents the latter. It is important to 
separate the two and it is exciting to observe whether they collapse 
emotionally, that is, do indirect experiences evoke emotions? The 
answer seems to be no as emotions are the result of our own 
experiences; indirectly learnt things activate these feelings. The 
Titanic killed people; it is death that moves us and death, the loss of 
someone close is a directly gained experience. The sinking of a ship is 
an indirect thing for most of us but we automatically relate it to 
physical and human loss, which is direct. For this reason I oppose the 
notion of sleeping or slipping knowledge because there are always 
segments that are alive in the present state. We may seem to bury a 
concrete event but the related emotion is with us and this emotion is 
kept vivid by other present events. This I call continuity and the 
intricate net of concepts. Thus, I disagree with CP that a feeling is 
independent of any other state of mind (following Kant's tripartite 
division of feeling, willing and knowing) -- I claim that feelings are part 
of a recursive circle; they are evoked by events and they also incite 
events. Here I second Freud - what is the motivation of our deeds? 
First, we want to feel good; second, we want to avoid unpleasant 
emotions, that is, we do things for the sake of an emotional well-being. 
And we learn these emotions from our deeds and the events 
happening to us -- a nice circle, no way vicious. I repeat that the effete 
mind is never passive, which entails that I would delete the notion of 
effete once and for all; there is only the living. Yes, the continuous 
thought is the effete mind but the effete and the living do not meet or 
clash -- they are one homogenous continuum. It is true that we cannot 
explain the difference between matter and the effete mind -- no one 
has been able to do it for over two millenniums - hence the belief in a 
god. 

6. The missing notion of subjectivity in P's philosophy -- The previous 
problem is reiterated again: CP claims that ''we separate the past and 
the present. The past is the inner world, the present the outer world''. 
He speaks of mutuality, complexity and tension between the two -- I 
accept only the first. The main issue is why CP rejects subjectivity 
while attempting to define the self, personality and self-consciousness. 
However, there is mention of his ignorance of the self rather than the 
refusal of it. In my interpretation, and his use of subject as the 
correlative of predicate underlines this, this is merely a question of 
terminology. If there is the self then it is equal with subjectivity. CP's 
categories of consciousness are completely the same as Kant's -- 
feeling, reaction and learning. All these interfere between the self and 
the other individuals. This chapter does not add too much novelty to 
the hitherto cognised ideas; moreover, it rather highlights the 
controversies and discrepancies in CP's ideas.

7. The unpredictable past -- Among the questions raised the issue of 
temporality is the greatest challenge as time is unattainable and quasi 
indescribable. CP consistently maintains that the present moment is 
independent of what is before and after, which I regard as completely 
wrong. As a result, no unexpected will turn up out of the blue and it is 
not in the futuristic world of computers. IM is biased towards CP -- he 
is too occupied with CP's apparently false views. If it is ''the tracks [...] 
of the effete mind from which [...] the living mind extracts [...] 
knowledge of the past'' is true, then CP has been refuted. But then IM 
comes to the realisation that continuum denotes the mental and 
perceptional sameness of the three time dimensions. But this again 
questions the feasibility of the time-axis model; the model is too simple 
if we consider the intricacy of relations and too complicated if we 
imagine continuity as a chain. Neither is the case. Truly enough, we 
can argue against the existence of present in view of past and future. 
If we render the present to matter or the other way round, we cannot 
take an account of mental activation, which must be related to past 
and future. I would change the term ''objective reality'' used for the 
past to ''subjective (sur)reality'' as mental conceptualisation is 
individual. The musical example is impressive, however, it proves the 
internalised experience, which was once present. A born-deaf person 
can never have this experience, that is, the lack of Firstness (physical 
background of hearing) disables the formation of Secondness even at 
the presence of Thirdness and the moment there is Firstness it entails 
the other two. This proves that priority cannot be rendered to any one 
of them. I do not believe in the difference between the creative energy 
of music and texts, as IM puts it that music does not produce new 
reality -- I claim that every human creation does produce reality. Also, 
it is not only the arts that evoke aesthetic sensation but everything 
that is related to man. The interpretation of text and music is very 
much the same. Bakhtin's view that man does not get enriched by 
interpreting the Other can be refuted by Bakhtin himself -- 
interpretation is the relating of one's own concepts to Other, that is, 
one's concepts are refreshed, rearranged or even newly constructed. 
The last is the main aim of literature. 

8. The quiet discourse: some aspects of representation in C. Peirce's 
concept of consciousness -- In this chapter CP, Bakhtin and 
Baudrillard are paralleled to gain a better understanding of 
conceptualising metaphors. The example of the video-recorded 
person acting like an animated sign is odious because watching 
oneself one becomes Other. The problem of incomplete meaning can 
be resolved by pragmaticians' cooperative principle -- interpretation 
lessens the burden of meaning discrepancies as interpreters must be 
cooperative and eliminate both the shortcomings and divergences of 
meaning. Thus social consciousness supervises and supplements 
individual consciousness. This kind of intertwining disables Bakhtin's 
textual reality -- what happens when encountering a text is blending 
(Fauconnier & Turner 2002) social, individual and textual 
consciousnesses. One might wonder over iconic signs -- if they are 
represented, do not they turn into symbols? Interpretive 
consciousness elevates icons to a metaphoric-symbolic level and if it 
so then it is futile to search for the link between mind and iconic 
effects. Not that we can explain the origin and nature of elevation, far 
from that, as stated several times. A difference is made between 
interpretation (extracting meaning) and conveying (passing on) 
meaning -- are not these the same especially in view of Firstness 
gaining sense by Secondness. In this view conveying meaning just 
does not make sense, is not valid as it would mean that Firstness is 
actually Secondness, incorporating even Thirdness. If it was so, why 
distinguish the three? It is not the hologram that radiates meaning but 
its combined Secondness and Thirdness -- the mysterious man. 

9. One-man-tango -- A hard task is coming up again -- dream 
interpretation in terms of consciousness and cognition. CP interprets 
dreams as real life experiences (forward thoughts), whereas IM as 
parts of false reality (backward non-thoughts). I do not think that 
dreams are chaotic; they only pick out the most relevant fragments, 
which are projected more speedily than in reality. The denial of 
solipsism questions CP's earlier claims of Secondness-Firstness 
relations -- if reality is borne in Secondness then it underlines the role 
of Ego. I would not detach knowledge of Other and Ego as the former 
does become internalised -- to me it seems that the right reasoning 
leads CP to a wrong conclusion. Throughout the book IM incorporates 
CP's interpreters' opinions, which is very impressive. Here, for 
example, he relies on Murphey's criticism that CP is not consistent, 
which seems to be the case. The same old problem is reiterated, 
namely, that the effete mind is the dim storage of past ideas or the 
storage of dim past ideas. If it was true, there would not be any 
development of the Self and more importantly, we would not be able to 
exist. IM supports this calling the representation of the mind 
conceptual. These concepts make up the recursive net of 
consciousness that guide us. The metaphorical mind and metaphorical 
language use gives evidence to the fact that it is conceptual thinking 
that relates the directly and indirectly expressible. That they become 
one, secondarily linguistically and primarily cognitively, is proved by 
Lakoff & Johnson (1980). The example of the poem gives evidence of 
the Self rather than the Other -- what we read in a poem is our mind: 
consciousness, sub-consciousness and emotions, all in one. The 
interpretation of poetry is similar to that of texts in general as Self and 
Other are in a similar intertwined conceptualisation; what makes it 
more complicated is the fact that poetry represents a rather complex 
metaphorical consciousness. It is metaphors we live by; the mind is 
very much accustomed to constant inferences of metaphors. IM is also 
aware of this -- the nature of Self is as metaphorical as Nature itself. 
The investigation of Self and Other can be best carried out by the 
observation of the child exceeding the premature period when the two 
are not yet separated in him/her. 

10. How is meaning possible? -- IM distinguishes interpretation from 
conceptualisation claiming that the former is a meaning-seeking free-
association process and the latter is a flexible scientific method. I treat 
conceptualisation as a mind process and wonder why IM finds it 
scientific. IM reiterates that the effete mind is inactive, which I doubt 
for reasons outlined earlier. I do not separate the past and the living 
present, rather, I collapse the two saying that the present is animated 
past. The doubts about the computer taking over the operations of the 
mind are appropriate -- the individual concept-based consciousness 
cannot be taught to the machine as whose concepts are they 
anyway? Are they the programmer's or programmers' -- one person or 
some general social consciousness, which is an illusion? Let us not 
accept Wittgenstein's scepticism -- language is limited but the mind is 
broader than language. The inability of language to fully represent the 
mind appears in the inability of the computer to do the same. Meaning 
is searched by holistic methods in philosophy and cognitive sciences; 
psychology today is turning to the opposite direction, the atomistic 
approach, whose main device is biology, to which brain research 
provides significant contribution. IM equates Gendlin's 
conceptualisation theory with CP's effete mind. However, Gendlin's 
approach to meaning through conceptualisation does not seem to 
reiterate CP. In IM's understanding of conceptualisation all is 
acceptable except for his regarding past-related concepts abandoned. 
Also, instead of layers of the mind we had better prefer a network 
similar to the neural net. IM ends the book by enumerating the issues 
he feels not to have given detailed elaboration. In sum, IM gives an 
impressive account of CP's marginalia together with numerous 
references to CP's interpreters. The questions IM touches upon are 
challenging for philosophers, psychologists, linguists and the man in 
the street.

REFERENCES

Anderson, R. & Pichert, J. (1978) Recall of Previously Unrecallable 
Information Following a Shift in Perspective. Journal of Verbal 
Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 17, pp. 1-12.

Austin, J.L How to do things with words. Oxford: OUP.

Andor, J. ''On Psychological Relevance of Frames.'' Quaderni di 
Semantica VI. 2. pp. 212-221.

Bartlett, F.C. (1932) Remembering. Cambridge: CUP.

Beaugrande, de R. (1987) Schemas for literary communication. IN: 
Halász, L. (ed.) Literary Discourse: Aspects of Cognitive and Social 
Psychological Approaches. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter pp. 49-100.

Dijk, van T. & Kintsch, W. (1983) Strategies of Discourse 
Comprehension. New York: Academic Press.

Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M. (2002) The Way We Think: Conceptual 
Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Kenesei, A. (2005) Poetry Translation through Reception and 
Cognition: A model of poetic translation criticism. Ph.D. thesis, Pecs 
University, Hungary.

Lakoff, G & Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press.

Petofi, S.J. (2004) A szoveg mint complex jel. [The text as a Complex 
Sign.] Budapest: Akademiai Kiado.

Sperber, D. & Wilson, D. (1986) Relevance: Communication and 
Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER 


Andrea Kenesei is a lecturer in linguistics. Her interests include 
pragmatics, discourse and text analysis, linguistic analysis of 
literature, translation and reader-response theories. She has 
completed her Ph.D. dissertation titled "Poetry Translation through 
Reception and Cognition: The Proof of Translation is in the Reading. 
A Model of Poetic Translation Criticism."





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-17-1590