"If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant...

"If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything."

people never know what they meant

Linguistic turn before it was cool.txt

>implying that the difficulties involved in determining meaning are due to some property of intention and not the metaphorical, referential, and polyvocal structures upon which even the simplest of sentences depend for their legibility

linguistic turn was never cool

>Reducing matters of cognitive biases and lack of epistemological discipline to semantics within linguistic systems

t. analytic

he's talking about sjws

Isn't it more accurate to call this skepticism about the linguistic turn?

If anything, what Confucius seems to be saying is to *resist* the deconstruction of language, the temptation to monkey around infinitely with text and so on, to say what you mean.

Constructing a perfectly ordered language would solve precisely zero problems of philosophy ; this whole idea of the early analytic movement is very naive.

Seems more to me like he is saying that the deconstruction of language is nonsensical and incoherent, because in order to deconstruct anything you have to use language in a specific way that isn't arbitrary.

>implying the linguistic conclusion is even possible before rigorous examination of the epistemological conditions of possibility for critical reflection
>>implying that when the observation that certain epistemological systems remain incomplete for reasons that they cannot on their own terms explain is complemented by the suggestion that their seeming completeness is in fact only possible because of figuration is at all a "reduction" of the system to linguistic play and not rather an enriching of both language and system through their mutual interdependence, as well as a demand for greater rigor, which cannot really be met
>>>implying that philosophy doesnt end with hegel unless you invite the structuralist critique of the sign

...

that's where you misunderstand deconstruction. the whole thesis is that it is at work in language already.

>but implying that appeal to "tradition" will vouchsafe you immunity against deconstructive readings
>>implying that the very appeal itself isnt a rhetorical function that renders the whole discourse vulnerable

He's not appealing to tradition and neither am I.

He's saying that language has an implicit logos, that if attempted to deconstruct will lead to the deterioration of morals and art.

Of course, that might be what you want.

Yes. I agree.

Confucius does not do irony, does not do textuality, does not do any of that. I doubt Peterson would mention him, for example, because he might say that Confucian thought has produced or enabled totalitarianism. Personally, I think that Confucius is very compatible with a lot of New Sincerity stuff, which really *is* something interesting to think about if we are inclined to talk about what comes after postmodernity and so on. Leaving aside the legacy of totalitarianism in China and so on for a moment, the thing about Confucianism is *virtue,* right action, right speech - and if there is anything more corrosive to ideological psychic detritus I would like to see it. This is complicated stuff perhaps but to me it's interesting.

Maybe I've watched too many Peterson videos recently and he's brainwashed me, but I think about this shit all the time, Speaking The Truth and so on. It's a psychoanalytic thing.

>also tfw girardfag

Anyways. Rather than go on an insane neurotic ramble about ten million things, I think it would be entirely better to ask you to clarify and elaborate on that last statement, to see how much we are in agreement.

The other thing to think about is this tension between *right* speech and *free* speech, which are right there next to each other in I think some really interesting ways. I am inclined to say that *right* speech is moral, whereas *free* speech includes within it *the right to be immoral whenever and wherever it is existentially necessary* - perhaps a legacy of Nietzshce. But these are just big ideas, vaguely articulated, and perhaps signifying nothing.

Still though, they make interesting little clouds. If I ever meet Peterson I'm going to ask him about Alice in Wonderland. 'Twould seem just as germane a fable as Pinocchio, since she's just traversing a nightmarish psychosemantic labyrinth from one end to another and trying not to get killed by words.

Confucius BTFO trump

>if attempted to deconstruct
Looks like you missed user's point:
>the whole thesis is that it is at work in language already

But I don't think it is at work in language already. Because you have to interpret language in a specific way for it to reveal itself to you that way.

Do you think most people view language the same way Derrida did? Of course they don't. Most people hear signs and symbols that correspond to actual phenomena, whether abstract or concrete.

>Isn't it more accurate to call this skepticism about the linguistic turn?
But the linguistic turn isn't limited to the post-structuralists. There's Wittgenstein in the analytical movement, there's Peirce who is the father of semiotics, in pragmatism...

Ordinary language philosophy is what Confucius is being the apologist of. The customs of the community (con-text) and their relationship with its language (text) are a big deal for Confucius.

Anyway, he, in fact, ends up agreeing with the post-structuralists' main thesis on language: that ideas of what is good, just and beautiful are taught, if not enforced, through language. This is not skepsis. Where is the difference, then?

The difference is that his approach to the matter is a conservative one instead of waging a war against the Chinese language, and the conventions thereof, a war which he suspects will lead to chaos.

>This matters above everything.

From Mencius, on the peasants uprising and killing the King Chow

>He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain. I have heard of the cutting off of the villain Chow, but I have not heard of the putting of a ruler to death.

Its never good when a leader can fail the doctrine of the rectification of names

>because you have to interpret

it's almost as though interpretation is a function built into the use of language, and not entirely something on the side of the subject receiving the text. the fact that this structure, which some have called the hermeneutic circle, is necessary for language to function as language, means that the deconstruction to which that circle leads, the inherent openness of any act of interpretation, is itself identical with language. the very act of reading is already a deconstruction, and a series of marks on the page are only language insofar as they are read.

why should anyone care about how "most people view language?" if i wanted to know what "most people" thought about this topic, i wouldnt be studying it, but id be doing psychology or sociology or political science instead. you're making a category error when you assert that the common sensical understanding of linguistic function in anyway impinges on the structure of the sign. and in any case that common sense understanding is determined by the sign already, a sign whose tendency to defer meaning irresolvably is very much "built in" or "hard-wired."

>the inherent openness of any act of interpretation, is itself identical with language

No, no it's not.

If I say no, no it's not, it never means yes, yes it is.

Wittgenstein, Buddha, and Parfit all teamed up to destroy philosophy haven't you heard?

>If language is not correct
If you accept this premise, the rest of the sentence makes no difference