Dear Mark This is my third plea and I write with genuine gratitude and sincerity. You are a good teacher and educator in this field. So let me just on this very rainy and cold day in England ask you further. [As you know truly i understand little of these things. my love is translation etc..]
But just to continue for a few minutes more: Please: You write: **Saussure's semiotics was, to my understanding, concerned with relational meaning. For instance, in my Social Problems classes, I distinguish between relational models and comparative models. Comparison is at the root of the multicultural movement, which celebrates difference without engaging in a criticism of the power relations between the represented statuses. An examination of power differentials (social stratification) is a relational study. It could also be called "social semiotics" (my own term). Likewise, Saussure argued that the meaning a sentence (for instance) has to listeners or readers changes when the gestalt (configuration) of the words (or any signs) is manipulated. Signs only have meaning in relation to other signs. Therefore, by Baha'u'llah placing the Qur'an into a new "semiotic framework," He changed its meaning.** Mark: Please help me: How did Baha'u'llah place the Qur'an into a new "semiotic framework"? Is it the place in the Iqan where He says no one understood it before? ***^^Twelve hundred and eighty years have passed since the dawn of the Muhammadan Dispensation, and with every break of day, these blind and ignoble people have recited their Qur'an, and yet have failed to grasp one letter of that Book! Again and again they read those verses which clearly testify to the reality of these holy themes, and bear witness to the truth of the Manifestations of eternal Glory, and still apprehend not their purpose. (Baha'u'llah: The Kitab-i-Iqan, Page: 172) ****^^^ Please tell me. The other thing is this: Give me a practical example: So often, infinite times, a Christian comes to my home and says: In the Gospel is written: 1] John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 2]Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name [other than Jesus] under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. and an orthodox Jewish friend says: similarly: 3] Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Please tell me. How would you with the knowledge of Saussure and Derrida help me in this regard? Is it a bit like the way Baha'u'llah reveals people did not understand it for 1280 years! [in relation to the Qur'an]? There is then a corollary problem for us Baha'is too. Is it not so. 4] Because our flexibility as it were stops when we come to the Interpretations and Elucidations of the Authoritative Interpreters and Elucidator?. We say "somehow thus far and no further" for the moment at least "no further" Just think on it for half an hour and help me. I am sorry I missed your face a few years ago in Oxford. You are a great teacher and I am very proud to be taught these very difficult terms and terminology by you. The practical examples above will help. The amazing thing about you is your patience and faithfulness to me [and more pertinently our Community] all these years. Also if there are web sites dealing with these? Have you thought of writing a book to help all of us. OneWorld I am sure will jump at the idea khazeh ever devoted ever humble and hopefully not just lost in the valley of words if the examples above should illuminate our firesides Mark Foster wrote: ***Hi, Khazeh, At 05:53 PM 9/27/03 +0100, you wrote: >>BUT PLEASE further read these excerpts and tell me what is the point of view of these author? Including the Century of Light authors? There seems to be a conflict...Can you understand any of it? If any one can it must be you Mark.<< Thanks. Of course. >>Please take a few minutes and explain the background to me. I will not trouble you again. I promise<< lol. You can "trouble" me any time you like. >>Question: What do you get when you cross Derrida with a member of the Mafia? >>Answer: Someone making you an offer you can't understand, or refuse!<< Of course, the assumption is that if you turn down "the Mafia," such as a request for protection money, you do so in jeopardy to your own life. The writer was juxtaposing the so-called Mafia with a reference to Derrida, admittedly a difficult writer. It takes several readings of his works to get something of a handle on what he had in mind. >>Invoking the French linguist Saussure's metaphor of the chessboard, Cole suggests that Baha'u'llah's adducing of Christian scriptures reconfigured the revelatory position of the Qur'an as dispensational rather than final, causing it to look quite different from the traditional Muslim perspective of it.<< Saussure's semiotics was, to my understanding, concerned with relational meaning. For instance, in my Social Problems classes, I distinguish between relational models and comparative models. Comparison is at the root of the multicultural movement, which celebrates difference without engaging in a criticism of the power relations between the represented statuses. An examination of power differentials (social stratification) is a relational study. It could also be called "social semiotics" (my own term). Likewise, Saussure argued that the meaning a sentence (for instance) has to listeners or readers changes when the gestalt (configuration) of the words (or any signs) is manipulated. Signs only have meaning in relation to other signs. Therefore, by Baha'u'llah placing the Qur'an into a new "semiotic framework," He changed its meaning. >>I was urged by Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago to make clearer in this revision (1 April 1994) the distinction between a perhaps more Apollonian semiotic approach that would stress polyvalence, and the more Dionysian approach of Derrida's deconstruction, which would talk of semantic ambiguity and instability. I do not myself believe deconstruction is altogether incompatible with elements of Babi-Baha'i epistemology, but in this paper I am simply opening the question.<< The distinction being drawn is between contradiction and ambiguity. Derrida's deconstructionism favoured the later by allowing the interpreter to question meanings. Contradiction obviously does not. Cole is questioning whether Derrida's approach is compatible with "Babi-Baha'i epistemology." IMO, Babi epistemology is, at least on face value, more polyvalent, to use Cole's term, whereas Baha'i epistemology is somewhat more ambiguous and would more readily permit deconstruction. >>I do wish to suggest that in any case the alternative Western traditions of positivism and the Vienna circle approach to language analysis are unlikely to be as helpful in understanding Baha'u'llah's and the Bab's approaches to textual interpretation as are either semiotics or postmodernism (the latter itself diverse and not limited to deconstruction).<< Cole is saying that neither textual literalism (positivism) and propositionalism (the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle) nor semiotics and postmodernism are helpful in Baha'i hermeneutics. >>One must tread with care to keep historiographical deconstruction from degenerating into mere historical solipsism. Nonetheless, an awareness of the degree to which interpretation colours our understanding of history offers insights which can give sanction to a great deal of "remembered" and, to a small extent, even to "invented" history.<< Questioning the normative assumptions of a particular historiography (historical mirror) should not be allowed to degenerate into extreme subjectivity. Some of the less careful approaches to Husserlian phenomenology have gone in this direction. Winters is basically arguing for epoche or bracketing. >>Against the background of this desolate landscape the intellectual vogue of the age, seeking to make a virtue out of grim necessity, has adopted for itself the appellation and mission of "deconstructionism".<< Right. That is my problem with extreme postmodernism. There are about 50 technical points that are flashing in and out of my mind now, but I will limit my response to one. Sociological deconstructionists, in recognizing the "grim necessity" of questioning existing norms or constructs, sometimes exceed the possibilities of the scientific method, going from epistemological relativism to ontological relativism. Mark A. Foster * http://MarkFoster.net **** earlier khazeh wrote: ******Dear Prof Mark Foster: Dear kind and patient scholar I read your post below carefully and I so appreciate your answers. > > I am primarily using these terms in their **sociological**, not theological, senses. > > 1. Social nominalism is the view that groups and societies are merely names that we use for collections of individuals. From a nominalist standpoint, individuals are real. Groups and societies are not real. By extension, the Word of God might be regarded as a convenient fiction to nominate texts written in different times and places by specific persons. > > I agree with social nominalism to a point, but it depends on how one defines "reality." Whereas individuals have an ontological reality, groups and societies have a socially constructed, not an ontological, reality. However, since, like most sociologists, I regard the group, not the individual, as the basic unit of theory and research, I would not call myself a social nominalist. In fact, there are only a few social nominalists in sociology, and most of them (Burgess, Bushell, Homans, etc.) can be found in what is called the "social behaviourist" school (based on behavioural psychology). > > 2. Social constructionism is a complex perspective which reduces, or deconstructs, reality into acts of subjective social construction. The radical perspective in gender studies, which includes psychological androgyny (the position that children of both sexes should be socialised identically), is basically constructionist. Gender is regarded as a subjective human creation. The texts of the Bible were social constructions and can be reconstructed by each new generation and society. > > I see some merit in social constructionism and use the perspective a bit. However, I reject its extreme ontological relativism. Although some sociologists *claim* to be social constructionists, the subjectivist (even solipsistic) assumptions of constructionism, a bit like Dilthey's hermeneutic circle, make it untenable, in my view, for a sociologist to be a complete constructionist. > > 3. Postmodernism is a somewhat vague term which can refer to any number of different subjectivist perspectives, including constructionism and deconstructionism. Postmodernists tend to be suspicious of the scientific method. However, if each scientist, including each social scientist, is bound to see empirical phenomena differently from her or his colleagues, what is the point of science? The so-called "Enlightenment project" is largely abandoned. > > I find a moderate social deconstruction to be useful in deconstructing various social and cultural traits. However, I do not find the generalising assumptions of postmodernism to be particularly useful in sociology. > > 4. Critical realism in sociology refers to the work of philosopher, Roy Bhaskar. It is a highly complex framework and much to complex to do justice to in a paragraph summary. That said, critical realism thoroughly rejects the essentialism of the Platonists and neo-Platonists. All essences are individual, not universal. What is universal, or creates an identity of type, is the **real**. To Bhaskar, at least prior to 1998, that universal (or reality), social structure, is not a constant, but is a dialectical product of history (hence the "critical" element). Society and its groups are constantly being restructured as people react to their own histories. > > Critical realism comes closest to the approach I use (restructurational realism) in sociology. BUT PLEASE further read these excerpts and tell me what is the point of view of these author? Including the Century of Light authors? There seems to be a conflict...Can you understand any of it? If any one can it must be you Mark. Please take a few minutes and explain the background to me. I will not trouble you again. I promise khazeh [ignorant but seeking light] I once read this somewhere too but this too I do not understand! Question: What do you get when you cross Derrida with a member of the Mafia? Answer: Someone making you an offer you can't understand, or refuse! Buck writes: Baha'u'llah's references to Christ and the New Testament served to relativize the Islamic heritage. *For a new religion to emerge from Islam, with its dense, millennium-old traditions and highly elaborated religious scholarship,* Cole observes, *was as difficult as for a moon to escape the gravity of its planet* (66). Invoking the French linguist Saussure's metaphor of the chessboard, Cole suggests that Baha'u'llah's adducing of Christian scriptures reconfigured the revelatory position of the Qur'an as dispensational rather than final, causing it to look quite different from the traditional Muslim perspective of it. There is also the element of a potential Christian audience, although this cannot have been the primary motive, considering that Baha'u'llah had adduced the New Testament in some of his early Baghdad works, evidently for interpretive rather than for missiological reasons (66-7). http://bahai-library.org/reviews/jesus.html Cole writes: I was urged by Franklin Lewis of the University of Chicago to make clearer in this revision (1 April 1994) the distinction between a perhaps more Apollonian semiotic approach that would stress polyvalence, and the more Dionysian approach of Derrida's deconstruction, which would talk of semantic ambiguity and instability. I do not myself believe deconstruction is altogether incompatible with elements of Babi-Baha'i epistemology, but in this paper I am simply opening the question. I do wish to suggest that in any case the alternative Western traditions of positivism and the Vienna circle approach to language analysis are unlikely to be as helpful in understanding Baha'u'llah's and the Bab's approaches to textual interpretation as are either semiotics or postmodernism (the latter itself diverse and not limited to deconstruction). http://bahai-library.org/provisionals/surah.sun.html Jonah Winters writes: One must tread with care to keep historiographical deconstruction from degenerating into mere historical solipsism. Nonetheless, an awareness of the degree to which interpretation colours our understanding of history offers insights which can give sanction to a great deal of "remembered" and, to a small extent, even to "invented" history. and the text that we are all encouraged to read the Century of Light on your website says: ***The sense of disillusionment which, as Shoghi Effendi warned, the spread of political corruption would create in the minds of the mass of humankind is now widespread. Outbreaks of lawlessness have become pandemic in both urban and rural life in many lands. The failure of social controls, the effort to justify the most extreme forms of aberrant behaviour as primarily civil rights issues, and an almost universal celebration in the arts and media of degeneracy and violence-these and similar manifestations of a condition approaching moral anarchy suggest a future that paralyses the imagination. Against the background of this desolate landscape the intellectual vogue of the age, seeking to make a virtue out of grim necessity, has adopted for itself the appellation and mission of "deconstructionism".**** earlier still Mark Foster wrote: ****I just posted this message on another (not Baha'i) list: Literalism, of course, means the *apparent* meaning. It is a form of "naive realism," which, among other things, assumes an exact correspondence between words and reality. Rather than words pointing to certain things, which would be the approach taken by most nominalists, constructionists, postmodernists, and critical realists, naive realists posit that words are isomorphic with reality. The unfortunate consequence of literalism is a failure to understand contextuality and historicity. Hence, we see a hostility to higher (textual) criticism on the part of many Christian fundamentalists. If Paul says that women should not assume authority over a man, he is presumed by these literalists not only to be referring to a particular congregation or to a point in time but, universally, to all bodies of believers then and in the future. Mark A. Foster * http://MarkFoster.net & to me [khazeh] Mark explained: Khazeh, You wrote: >>Please can you give working definitions of each of these: in your post below .... Plus whether you agree with each of these four.<< I am primarily using these terms in their **sociological**, not theological, senses. 1. Social nominalism is the view that groups and societies are merely names that we use for collections of individuals. From a nominalist standpoint, individuals are real. Groups and societies are not real. By extension, the Word of God might be regarded as a convenient fiction to nominate texts written in different times and places by specific persons. I agree with social nominalism to a point, but it depends on how one defines "reality." Whereas individuals have an ontological reality, groups and societies have a socially constructed, not an ontological, reality. However, since, like most sociologists, I regard the group, not the individual, as the basic unit of theory and research, I would not call myself a social nominalist. In fact, there are only a few social nominalists in sociology, and most of them (Burgess, Bushell, Homans, etc.) can be found in what is called the "social behaviourist" school (based on behavioural psychology). 2. Social constructionism is a complex perspective which reduces, or deconstructs, reality into acts of subjective social construction. The radical perspective in gender studies, which includes psychological androgyny (the position that children of both sexes should be socialised identically), is basically constructionist. Gender is regarded as a subjective human creation. The texts of the Bible were social constructions and can be reconstructed by each new generation and society. I see some merit in social constructionism and use the perspective a bit. However, I reject its extreme ontological relativism. Although some sociologists *claim* to be social constructionists, the subjectivist (even solipsistic) assumptions of constructionism, a bit like Dilthey's hermeneutic circle, make it untenable, in my view, for a sociologist to be a complete constructionist. 3. Postmodernism is a somewhat vague term which can refer to any number of different subjectivist perspectives, including constructionism and deconstructionism. Postmodernists tend to be suspicious of the scientific method. However, if each scientist, including each social scientist, is bound to see empirical phenomena differently from her or his colleagues, what is the point of science? The so-called "Enlightenment project" is largely abandoned. I find a moderate social deconstruction to be useful in deconstructing various social and cultural traits. However, I do not find the generalising assumptions of postmodernism to be particularly useful in sociology. 4. Critical realism in sociology refers to the work of philosopher, Roy Bhaskar. It is a highly complex framework and much to complex to do justice to in a paragraph summary. That said, critical realism thoroughly rejects the essentialism of the Platonists and neo-Platonists. All essences are individual, not universal. What is universal, or creates an identity of type, is the **real**. To Bhaskar, at least prior to 1998, that universal (or reality), social structure, is not a constant, but is a dialectical product of history (hence the "critical" element). Society and its groups are constantly being restructured as people react to their own histories. Critical realism comes closest to the approach I use (restructurational realism) in sociology. Mark A. 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