> On Oct 2, 2014, at 5:06 AM, Frederik Stjernfelt <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I am quite sure Derrida never read much Peirce and I have a hard time seeing
> them go in the same direction. As far as I recall the Peirce references of
> the Grammatology, Derrida only focuses upon infinite semiosis, delighting in
> the interpretation that the chain of signs ever bars us from reality - quite
> the opposite of Peirce to whom that chain brings us ever closer …
I don’t want to go down a big tangent into a discussion of
Heidegger/Derrida/Ricouer etc. That’s just too off course. I do think there are
common elements of analysis even if there are big differences.
I’ve no idea how much Peirce Derrida has read. He’s a rather well person but
since he doesn’t really mention Peirce much after that I suspect it was
probably in some short Peirce reader he encountered. So I doubt he encountered
more of the mature work of Peirce. I do think that being familiar with Derrida
and then reading Peirce’s letters to lady Welby is helpful.
Derrida was limited in his use of Peirce due to just considering the Symbol and
not the Icon and Index. I think those elements are in Derrida’s thought, but
just not expressed as such. Those who write of Peirce and Derrida in terms of a
divide typically focus on the Index and Icon as where Derrida is quite
different from Peirce. I think the realist readings of Derrida deal with that,
but especially in the US people tend to read Derrida (and also Heidegger) as
either idealists or even verging on relativism or solipsism. I think those
readings wrong, but it’s not usually worth debating. (There’s already lots of
books out there conducting that argument)
As I said, even if Heidegger and Derrida aren’t realists, there’s a useful way
of engaging with their thought while keeping the phenomena in mind and
retracing their reasoning. It might not be correct history of philosophy, but I
think it rather helpful philosophy. i.e. appropriate their reasoning in a
fruitful fashion.
Getting back to Derrida and infinite semiosis, the infinite is important
because we’re not at infinity. So the metaphor he usually uses is talk of a
Messiah but the Messiah is always “about” to arrive. Which is a nice metaphoric
way of dealing with the final interpretant. And I think on a practical matter
Derrida allows us truth now. (He basically discusses this in more plain talk in
the short interview at the end of Limited Inc) However I fully understand those
who see Derrida in a quite different fashion.
> Hmm, again I hesitate to go along with the Heidegger-Peirce approachment, if
> only because of Heidegger's ardent anti-science stance ("Wissenschaft denkt
> nicht") - while Peirce, of course, saw his own project as part of and
> continuation of existing results in science -
I think Heidegger’s “anti-science” can be exaggerated a lot. One has to be
careful to unpack what he’s doing. A real good book on this is Trish
Glazebrook’s Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science. But again that’s getting us too
far afield and I again recognize that not everyone reads Heidegger that way.
> Again, I find the realism of Heidegger and Derrida exagerrated - not least as
> measured on the Hintikka observation above -
There’s definitely a big divide in the scholarship on the issue. I favor the
realist reading more because I think it’s a fruitful way to read them that
helps inform how I read Peirce. (And that goes vice versa - Peirce has
definitely affected how I read Heidegger - and I primarily see Derrida as one
way to think through Heidegger’s phenomenology)
I’ll drop the Heidegger parallels, Although I do think some of his focus on the
copula which was then broadened when he considered signs like the painting of
shoes is helpful. It can allow us some considerations of the dicisign that I
don’t think Peirce necessarily considered. That is the mature sign
consideration, especially in Lady Welby letters, changes how we consider
phenomenology I think.
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