This article appeared in Semantic Anthropology

ed. D. J. Parkin, London: Academic Press, pp 39-63.

Copyright Elsevier http: //www.elsevier.com

MEANING OR MOANING? AN ETHNOGRAPHIC NOTE ON

A LITTLE-UNDERSTOOD TRIBE

MARK HOBART

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of re f

erence and wedded to the word.
Quine - Two dogmas of empiricism .

Was it the Qu een of Hearts o r Humpty Dumpty who liked changing

th e rules to suit their position? An unworthy doubt sometimes
creeps into mind that "meaning" is so slippery a word that those
who use it may lind th ey are unwittingly wearing Lewis Carroll 's
cap. Th e history of anthropology is littered with th e wreckage of
theories, th e ambiguity of th e core conce pts of which was as essential
to their initi al appeal as it was to their eventual decline. But anthro
pologists, understandably, pre fer th eir working co ncepts on the hoof,
so to speak, and are suspicious if they are nea tly stuffed for in
spection . There is a drawback though to the comfortable stance that
what is meant by mea ning should be evident to an idiot. Not only
does this let idiosyncratic interpretati ons of culture pretend to
infallibility, but it may make what is being talked about quite
obscure. Th e term itself has a cu rious an cestry. As Harold Bloom
rem arks "the word meaning goes back to a root that signifies
'opinion' or 'intentio n' , and is closely related to th e word moaning.
A poem's meaning is a poem's complaint ... " (1979 : I, italics in
the origin al; see also Onion s I 966). In fact still more lies behind the
usage.
A short survey of popular theories of mea ning may help to high
light some o f th e problems, a nd the unstated presuppositions. Like
th e tiger's tail, it is quite possibl e - if dangerous - to seize upon a
conve nient notion with ou t bothering about what it may entail and
commit one to what it may. Ethnography poses a dou ble difficult y.

40

Meaning or Moaning?

Mar k Hobart

Resea rc h rcquire s the st udy of indigenous categories and cul tural

assum ptions, whil e anthropology itself is part of a changing, an d
inte rnally diverse, Wes tern academic tradit ion. This makes the
problem of transla tion in its broades t sense more se rious than is
often recogn ized. It is easy to aSSume th at our academic, and cultural
categories are self-<:vident and to overlook how far a "double
hermeneutic" is inescapable.' A more critica l et hnography would
have, as it were, to con front bo th aspects (e.g. Needham 1976).
Sadly space does not permit a full de monstra tion of the argument.'
So I shall confine myself to the less evid ent part of the problem. The
issue may be cast into striking relief by treating Western philosophers
and their work, not as beyond scrutiny, but more familiarly as the
rather pedantic elders or a little known tribe on which th e e thno
graphic record is slim.
My argu me nt in short is th at meaning, as it tends to be used , is a
weak notion as it is far fro m clea r, and indeed far from culturally
neutral. Among the different intellectual traditions in the West, those
of most immediate in teres t may be glossed a little simplistically as
the Anglo-Saxon analytic, the German hermeneutic, and the French
semiological. As we shall see, despite differences all run into sim il ar
kind s of problem. What is remarkable to an ou tsider is how far
certain key concepts are a t times regarded as unproblematic . Most
theories also tend to have an Achilles' heel. For they rely a t some
point upon culturally specific, and questionable, metaphysi ca l
assumptions (in Collingwood's sense, 1939 and 1946), which may be
at odds with those of the culture under study. It is a matter of
debate whether it is legitim ate to ignore th e ex iste nce of such
possible differen ces.
This issue is not new, of course. Recent a ttempts to prese nt the
problem in epis temologica l terms (Foucault 1967, 1970 ; Kuhn 1962,
1977) , or to re phrase it by deconstructing the analyst's ca tegories
(Derrida 1972, 1976), run into difficulties of their own however
(Culler 1981; Lakatos & Mu sgrave 1970; Putnam 1981; Ne wton
Smith 1981). It is arresting to see meaning itself as an aspect of an
epistemic shift (Foucault 1970) ; and there has been a trend towards
seeing figurativ e language in particular as somehow central to iss ues
of meaning, or even co nstitutive of knowledge (Lakoff and Jo hnson
1980; Ortony 1979). This may hide a paradox: if all utterances are
structured figuratively, why should the analyst's utterance be
exempt? A cu rrently voguish approach to meaning may then be
hoist on its own petard. If this kind of relativism has shortcomings, it
does not follow that the opposite ex treme is any better. The argu
ment that events are ap preciated in th e buff tends to require a view
of language as transparen t and the observer's categories as simply

4J

congruen t with reality . On one view the weakness of this position is

that in translation, rather than being a convenie ntly neutral medium ,
reality la nds up becoming a further language, so doublin g the steps
of tra nslation (see Gellner 1970: 24-5 below). It is increasingly hard
these days to live in an uncomplica ted world of fac ts admired im
part ially by judges of impeccable taste. The drawback of such cheer
ful philistinism is nicely described in the popular Malay proverb:
Seperli kalak di bawah lempurong

Like a frog under a coconut shell

(he thin ks th at he sees the whole world)
Meaning has many se nses in English. I t is "a very Casanova of a
word in its appetite fo r association" (Black 1968: 163; for SOme
reason, meaning inspires sexual metaphors). So it may help to look at
TABLE I
Common English IIses of "lO meon"
Example

Approx imale

Comments

Synonym
I. I mean to read this book.

2. He never says what he means.

3. She rarely means what she says.

Intend (Sa , P2,

L2, L7)
(L3)
Intend ? ( L4)

ef. L6
2&3are

related but
far from

ide ntical

4. What did he mean by wrinkling his nose?

5. Those black. clouds mean fa in .

S;gnify? (Be)
Sign (P3)
S;gnify (Bb ; L9)

cf. L8 .
This is
also a
necessary
cond itio n

6. m = 2n. That mean s that

Shows (Bg)

7.

Ha ve no valuej
sig nificance (L8. PI)

Tn is even.
Fame and riches mea n nOl hing to a
true scho lar.

8. ... he, J mean the Bishop , did require

a respit e.
9. It was John I meant , no t Harry .
JO . The utin word "pluvia" means
"rain".

Note sig
nificance v.
signify

Refer to ( Bel)
Refer to? (LlO)

Symbol (P4)

cf. Ll

Stands for

For convenience of reference all my exampl es are taken from well~nown w o rks. Th e code

is:
B = Black 1968: 163.
L= Lyon s 1977: 12 .
P = Parkin so n 1968 : 1.
The first referen ce is th at of the so urce; subsequent o nes are similar examples hom the
sources cited.

42

Mark Hobarl

vernacular li se as a sta rt. So me of th e more obv iolls are given in T able

I. From this alone " to mea n" is roughly synonymous with : inte nd ,

sign ify , show, have valu e (or signifi cance), refer to , sta nd for .
Mea ning a lso stre tches to cover ca usa ti o n. Cloud s are a necessary
condi tio n of rain, no t an arbitrary signifier. This issue of the " moti
va tion" of signs will crop up in du e course . It should be apparent
though that English usage (as those of o th er European langu ages)
may include several senses and distinct kinds of relationship .
Mea ning may also be ap plied to qui te se parate aspec ts of uis
course. We may need to distin gui sh between th e mean ings of words ,
sentences and whole tex ts. To. Ri coeur th e whol e difference between
sem iotics and semantics is tha t between simple significa tion (what
he dismisses as the "unid im ensional approach" ) and the almost
infinitely variable rela tionship between subject and predica te by
which all propositions are form ed ( 1976: 6ff.) Beyon d th a t there is
a clear sense in which th e meanin g of sentences cannot be taken out
o f con text. Contex t, ho wever, presents some u npleasan t prob lems
o f its own. For th e present it is useful to note th at the different
levels at which it is possible to speak of " meani ng" are oft en
muddled.
If uses of meaning ap pear confused, perhaps an analyt ical
approach of the kind favoured in British Or American philosophy
may help? The re are at least seven main theories. A short summary
may be useful as it separa tes some of the central issues; and if we
distance ourselves a little by treating philosophers e thnograp hica ll y,
we find that they unwittingly offer all sorts of clues as to their
presuppositions which might o th erwise escape no tice.
Perhaps the most plausible view is th at words are a way of talking
about things. In " De no tation Theory" word s have meaning by
denoting things in the world , the object being the meaning (Russell
1905 ; c f. Lyons 1977: 177-215 on con fusio ns be tween uenoting and
referri ng). Matters are not so simple however. For how does o ne
speak, for instance, of past events and im aginary objects? It is hard ,
by this approach, t o cope with words like "and" or " if' , which have
no physical counterparts, but being logical connectives o ught be
included in a comprehensiv e theory of mea ning. The stress on
physical objects turns ou t not to be ac~iden t al. The same object
may be appreciable in differen t way s; and it is common to distin
gu ish between th e reference and the sense of a term (Frege 1892,
translated 1960) which may be variously interpreted but is wid ely
treated as close to th e difference between extension (what a word
denotes) and inten sion (what it connotes in 1.S. Mill's parlan ce) .'
Th e dichotomy between semi otics (semiology) and henmeneutics can

Meal/ing O f Moaning? 4 3

be relate d to these two ways of defining things (cf. Guirard 1975:

4044). Inte nsional meaning is often expressed in te rm s of properties
which may be described furth er as subjective , objective or co nven
tional in the ir lin k to an object (Copi 1978: 144). It is possible t o
trace iJJtension, with its emph asis upon essential properties, back to
Greek theories of esse ncc (Quin e in my openi ng quo tation). So th e
link between word s and things is not as straigh t fo rward as mi ght
seem ; but the histo ry of th e con nex ion is ancient. If words do no t
simply refer to things, what then is mea ning? On one reading:
On ce the theory of meaning is sharply separalcl1 from (he theory of
rercrence, it is a short step to recognizin g as the prilllary busi.Jl ess of {he
\heury of meaning sim ply the syno nymy o f linguistic for ms anti the
analy ticity o f statements: meanings themselves, as obscurc inlcrmetliary
entities, Illay well he ahcllldoncd. (Quinc 1953: 22 ).

If worus do not simply name things, do they name ideas inste"d ?

Th is view , which goes back to Locke (e.g. Staniland 1972: 28-52),
was more recently espoused by Sa pir ( 1921) where he tied meaning
to the mental images of objects. Images of a thing vary , however,
between people; and many word s cannot be imagined a t all. One
version of "Im age Th eory" substitutes "concept" fo r "im age" and
on th is de Saussure based his theory of langu"ge (for good critiques
see Blac k 1968 152-6 ; Kempson 1977: 16-17). Fo r his d istin ction
of signiJicanl:signiJie is that of sou nd:concep t (Baldinger 1980:
1-7; Lyons 1977: 96-98). Th e reliance of de Saussure and some of
his successors upon a rather stea m-age theory of meaning is rarely
made explici t.
Th e two approaches so far discussed try to fix th e meaning of
words. Th e next set are concerned with senten ces, or propositions
(what may be wrong with reducin~ the former to th e latter is dis
cussed in Quin e 1970: 1-14) . Th ese theories seem to ground them
selves in so me fonm of "rea iity" or, as Pu t n"m put it "a world
which admits of description by One True Th eory" (I98 i: xi). The
crud est versio n , " Ca usa l Theory", tries to derive meaning fro m causa
tion . The mea ning of a sta te me nt is the response(s) it induces
(Stevenson 1944) . One way of whiling away a dull afte rnoo n is in
inventing expressions to which no sa ne man could possibly respond .
A more serious co nte nder is "Verification Theory" . This se ts ou t
to defin e th e me"ning of a proposition by its correspondence with
reality. In its classic fo rm "the meaning of a proposition is the
me th od of its verifica tion" (Sc hlick 1936). This view has an obvio us
appeal in th e natural sciences; but it is harder to see how it would
comfor tab ly fit cu lt ural disco urse. There are man y things which are

44

Mark Hobart

beyond verifica tion even in principle, such as past, or unobservable,

events. Th e origin al version has been refined in various ways (a
"weak" versio n of the criterion of verifiability has been proposed by
Ay er 1936) perhaps th e best known being Popper's preference for
"falsifiable" over "verifiable" . So, for a sentence to have meaning,
what it says must in principle be falsifiable by facts. This is poten
tially a useful way of scrutinizing certain kind s of theory (see the
debate be twee n Kuhn a nd Popperians in Lakatos & Musgrave 19 70)
but, on at leas t o ne interpreta tion, it wou ld leave every novel, poem
or religious belief as mea ningless. It wou ld seem th en that theorie s
of meaning may a t best o nly work for a given problem. If so it
might be inappropriate to try to apply t hem genera lly.
The work of the Logical Positi vists points to a fascinating
problem. Members o f th e schoo l such as Carnap se t out explicitly
to produce a syste m free of meta ph ysical assumpti ons ( the title of
one work was "The elimination of metaphysics through logica l
analy sis of language" 1932, tra nslated 1959), a nd further held tha t
all metaphysical statements were meaningless. It is questionable
whether they succeeded in this. If one is empiricist e nough it is
perfectly possible to regard physical o bjects as me tap hy sica l assump
tions in their own right. For in sta nce:
Physical objec ts are co nceptuall y imported into the situation as conve n
ienl illterm cd ittries - not by definition ill terms o f ex pe rience, but simpl y
a~ ilTeduciblc posits co mparable, epistemo logically, to the gods or Ho mer
.. _in point of e pistemological foo tln g the ph ysical objects and th e gods
differ only in degree and nut in kind. Bo th sort s or entities ente r our
co ncc pti o n o ill y as c ultural posi ts. (Quine 1953: 44).

If the philoso phical elders ,Ire not unanim ou s, it seems at least th at

most have strong, and partly assumed, beliefs of a distinctive kind.
All this might seem far from anthropological te rra firma (if that it
be). Not only is knowledge of Our own ideas beginning to seem
increasingl y relevant to a study of mea ning, le t alone in oth er
cultures ; but it seems that our id eas are collective represen tat ions
which impose stark limits on what we think. This co mes ou t dearly
in the most elegant of the reality-based of th e "Corresp ond ence
Theori es". Rather simply put, a true proposition is in correspond
ence with reality, a fabe one not. The argument developed by
Tars ki (1944) and Davidson (1967) is too complex to discuss here
(for good accounts see Lyons 1977: 10-13,154-173; Kempson 1977 :
23-46). Several points are relevant though. First translation is held
to be possible by virtue of it being possible to specify co nditions
of truth valid for all possible worlds (presumably this ought to

Meaning or Moaning? 45

includ e the e thn ographer's cu ltu re of s tud y; one trusts this is not an
impossible world). Seco nd the theory applies to sente nces, not
proposition s, so it is necessary to remove the ambiguity of the
form er. To cope with this uema nd , it is necessa ry to focu s on the
truth o r falsity of se nte nces under a give n interpretation . Othe r
sentences may have ind etennin ate refere nce. So, to fix the mea ning
of a sentence , we have to posit, however temporarily, a se parate
interpretation , or specify a refe rence. If ambiguit y still remains,
Ihis is held to be the fault of the component expressions, or of
grammatical structure ( Lyo ns 1977: 169 -70) . Language it seems
must be mad e tra nspare nt whatever the cost. Procrustes and his
bed-technique see m kind by comparison.
The dirfic ulties of correspondence theory have been nea tl y put by
Gellner:
Language run ctiolls in a varie ty o r wa ys o ther than "rererring to objects" ,
Many objects are simpl y not there, in fl ny obvious physica l sense, to be
located : ho w co uld Olle, by this method , es tablish th e equiva lences, if

th ey exist, between abstra ct or nega tive o r hypothetical or religious

ex pressio ns? Again , lIlan y "objects" are in a sense createu by th e language ,
by Ihe manner in which its terms carve up the world or experience. Thus
the mediating third party is simply not to be found: either it turns ou t to
be an elusive ghost ("reality"), or it is just one further language, with
idiosyncracies of its own which are as liab le to distort. in translation as
did the o riginal language of th e investigator. (1 970: 25).

The difficulties include then how truth is to be und erstood and the
problems in moving from sentences in actual (natural) languages
to notionally context-free true propositions. Th e loss is that all
religious, moral and aesthetic statements becom e beyo nd the pale ,
which leaves us poor anthropologists driven back to eco logy, with
even such trusty standbys as power looking distinctly gJeen at the
gills.
The last approach we need to consider puts meaning finnly within
culture and habits of language use; for which reaso n perhaps it has
a degree of popularity among anthropologists. After proposing, in
his complex "Picture Theory", that meaning was achieved by a
homology between reality and the structure of language, Wittgen
ste in emerged with his second, or "Use Theory" (1958, 2nd edn
1969; 1953, 2nd edn 1958; in each case the latter difrers slightly).
It has kinship links with verification theory in the stress upon
method, but improves on it by locating meaning in the use of word s
in a language. So meaning is not a kind of object in th e natural
world, but a part of cu ltural convention. Language is used in a rather
special sense though. For, in any society , there are man y differe nt

46

Mark Hoban

systems of verbal signs, e~ch with rules of proper use. Meaning

depends th en no t o n a pa n-c ultural convention, but upon employ
ment in a particular context (Wittgenstein 1969: 17). Wittge nstein
re fers to each se t, an d "also the whole, consisting of a language and
the acti o ns into whieh it is woven (as) the 'language gam e'" (1 958:
I, 7 my parentheses). These ga mes includ e: giving orders, describing
objects, reporting events , forming hypo theses, making up stories,
translating, praying etc. (1958: 1,23 ). "Th e speaking of language
is part o f a n activity, or of a form of life" (1958: 1,23) and "what
has to be accepted, th e give n, is - so one could say - form s of life"
(19 58: II, 226e). Differe nt sets of term s ca nnot be directl y com
pa red; for lang\iage usedepe nds on a context.
Oncc again Gelln er is con venie ntly on hand to note the drawbacks.
If "meaning::::; use". then "u se : : ; meanin g" .. . if the meaning of expres
siolls is their em ploy mcnt . lhc n.in tum. it is of the esse nce o r th e employ
men t of ex pressio ns (an o h y <tn indepe ndent bur legitimate extension, of
other sl)cial hchtlviour), th;l t it is meaningful. (1973a: 55).

The danger has a parallel with Durkh eim's link o f morality with
society. If what is moral is simply social , then th e socia l is ip'o
faCIO moral , o r at least no institutional practice can ever be ques
tio ned on moral grounds. Here, it becomes im possible to ques tio n
meaning . Other theori es had too little , this has too mu ch. Gelln er
also remarks o n difficulties in groun din g the theory. For
, . . forms of life " ( i.e. socie tie s, cultures) arc num erous, dive rse, overlap
ping, and u II de rgo ch i:lnge _( 197 3a : 56)
. the poi nt about form s of life is tha t they do not always, or eve n
frequent ly, accept themse lves as gi ve n ... On the co ntrary, th ey often
reje ct th eir own pas t practices as absurd, irratio nal, et c. (1973a: 57)

Wittge nstein may well have intended "form of life" to refe r to

narrowe r con tex ts th an a whole cu lture (1 958 : II, 174e; Winch
1958: 41 applies th e tern] to in stitu tions such as "art" o r " sc ien ce"),
but this may not escap e Ge llner's trap e ntirely, For, whil e the
diversity of uses o f words in diffe rent ac tiviti es is im portant , it
raises awkward q uestio ns about how activities are linked . The theory
appeals to an unanaly sed no tion of "con text" . As it is used here
contex t takes at least three for ms: the pla ce o f any term within a
seman tic fi eld, or con trast se t; the place of this set within a sys tem of
ac tivity ; and the place of the activi ties within an encompassing
culture. 4 To invoke context as "given" may be a s tartin g point , it
is hardly a conclusion .
Th e purportedly "hard" Anglo-Sa xo n analytical phil osophy has

Meaning or Moaning?

47

diff'i cul ty in defi nin g meaning because of a bad tendency to do so by

re ference to ostensibly sel f-e vident co nstruc ts (reality, tru th, life)
whic h inva riabl y turn out to be dubi o us. Is it possible that
ap pro ac hes whic h were designed specificall y to study mea ning fare
any better? Hermeneutics started out as biblical exegesis but has
bee n developed into a generu l sc ience of un de rsta nding (Schleier
macher 1838), into t he method ologica l basi s o f Geis/es wissel1schu/
l en (Dilth ey 1958), into a way of understanding human ex istence
( Heidegger 1927) , and even into a method of studying soci al actio n
as text (R icoeur 1979). In its most simple for mulation it looks prom
ising (Gee rt z 1973 ; cf. Hobart 1983) p rovided one does no t look too
close.
Th e difficulty is that the diffe re nt sc hools, apart fro m in terna l
shad es o f em phasi s, are in bitter disagreemen t on what , in fact,
mea ning is and ho w (far) it ca n be know n at all. O ne view is th at
the observe r ca nnot escap e the historical , or social , circumsta nces in
which he lives and which limit his unde rstanding (B ultmann 195 7;
Gadamer 1965). So there is no privileged pos ition from which
mea ning can be known "objectively". Agai nst this, and closer to
Dilthey (a nd his disciple Betti 1962), Hirsch has recently sought to
coun ter t his argument by d istinguishing the significance of a work in
any possible contex t, from its mea ning, h ere unders tood philologi
call y as the original inte ntion of the author, wh ich is in theory at
least open to validati on (1967 : 8fL). To confuse ma tte rs, Ricoeur,
whil e preferring the traditions of Schleierma cher and Dilth ey, has
th e tas k of resc uin g hennen eutics as a gen era l theory of unde r
st anding (Vers /eh en) of culture, from the narro w philological gri p of
his appare nt ally (who rightly saw the dange rs in prostituting the
concep t ; o n Ricoeur , see his 1979: 88ff.). The fur y of the debate
between rival , and sometimes allied, sc hools (see Kerm ode 1981 on
Julll 1980) makes it clear th at if hermeneutics can prov ide a clear
statem ent abou t meanin g it will be ove r the dead bod ies of its own
proponen ts. As a sc hoolboy I heard a popular rumour that Charles
Atlas, th e o rigin al bod y-builder, had strangled to death due to th e
overdevelopme nt of his neck muscles. Th e grow th of hermeneutics
thr~a te n s at ti mes to bring about its suffocation in much the same
way '
There is an interesting connexion between hermen eutics a nd the
use theory of meaning. In the notorio us noti on of the "h erm eneutic
circle" the interpre te r is face d with the appa ren t pa radox that th e
meaning o f the words depends up on the meaning of the sentence of
which it is part ; whil e the sente nce meaning depe nds in turn o n its
cons titu ent words. So understandin g is circular and, to compound

48

Mark Hobart

the metaphors , requires an intuitive leap to grasp whole and part

together (cf. Ricocur 1981: 57, o n the subjec t "entering into" th e
knowledge of th e objec t). Similar proble ms apply between sente nce
and text; and presumab ly be tween tex t a nd culture . To approach
meaning requires "pre-und erstanding" by the interpreter (Bultmann
195 7: 113 ; cr. Betti 1962: 20-1 who objects to this whole idea) or
the context of any utte rance. So, once again, context descend s as
th e deus ex machil1a to reso lve the seemingly intractable problems
or meaning . Text being philoprogenitive , it has spaw ned co n-text
and , ror general ed irication, pre-text and inter-t ext (Culler 1981 :
100-118 ; ir pre-text = pre-understanding, does text = und ers tand
ing?). Gelln er, among'o th ers, has made the point that th e distinguish
ing reature o f most soc ial anthropology - typified by runctionalism
- is its stress on contex t in analysis ( 19 70 ; 1973a ; 1973b). It is not
unamusing, there rare, to see hermeneuts and phil osophers find the
answer to their problems in a concept which anthropologists have
been enthu siastical ly dissec ting in numberle ss specialized ways ror
decades. Th e re are, it would seem, Frankenstcins aroot hoping to
breathe lire back int o th e dismembered corpse or context.
In view of the difficulties in getting th e semantic band wagon onto
th e road , it will hardly come as a surprise that much of the successful
work has been phrased in tenn s, not of meaning, but of significat ion .
(Wilden has argued that sign irication is simply the digital coun teIJlart
or meaning in analogic cod ing, 1972.) There will be, I rear, a sense or
deja vu wh en it tums out that th ose wh o agree that language, and
indeed culture, should be approached semiotically disagree as to how
signification is to be understood (see Lyons 1977: 95-119; also
Baldinger 1980). The problems may be exemplified by a short look
at th e work or de Saussure , because or his great impact in an thro
pology. Ju st how closely apparently unrelated schools a re actua ll y
providing alternative rormu lations or similar problems co mes out in
the rollowing ci tation.
. .. se miotic syste ms are "closed", i.e., without relation s to external, non

semiotic reality . Th e defi nitio n of the sign given by Saussure already

implied this postulate : insteiJd of being defined by the external relation
between a sign <lnd a thing, a relation that would make linguistics depend
en t upon a theory of extra-linguistic en tities , the sign is defined by an
opposition between two aspects, which both fall within the circumspec
tion of a unique science , tl1at of Signs. These two aspects are the sign ifier
- for example. a sound, a written pallern l a gesture, or any physical
medium - and the signilied - the differential value of the lexical system
In a word, language is no lo nger treated as a "form of life", as

Meaning or Mooning?

49

WiUgenstein would call it, but as a self-sufficient system of inner rela

tionships. (Ricoe ur 1976 : 6)

Here we find a third possibility. Meaning is nO longer to be defined

by either an external "reality", or an ex ternal context. In stead it is
to be defined within language itselr by splitting the latter according
to a questionable connexion (see Image Theory). The errec t, in fact ,
is just to shift th e problem of contex t rrom an external one to an
internal. Chronos o nly swa llowed his ch ildren ; Logos seems to have
swa llowed his mother.
In view or its imp or tance , it is userul to exa mine some or the
details or de Sau ssu re 's scheme more carerully. For a s tart, what
exactly is the signified? On exam ination it turns out to be no thing
other than our old friend "concept" en haute cou ture. Ir I may
introduce Ogd en and Richards' "triangle or signification" (Lyons
1977 : 96-99; Baldinger 1980) it becomes clear that the third angle
(the re rerence) is largely ignored which distracts attention rrom the
nasty problem or what it is in things that are indicated by concepts.
Once we as k about the properties of objects , we are plunged into
ancient , but still th orny, controversies abou t universa ls and particu
lars (e.g. nomi nalism versus realism) and defi nitions (whe ther
essential" linguistic or prescriptive) which have raged singe the great
Greek philosophers. In sticking th eir head s in th e scmiotic sand,
anthrop ologists leave th e large, a nd juicy, part delectably exposed to
predators.
On another score, it has become a cliche or structuralist a rgumen t
that the link between signirier and co ncept is arbitrary . This asse rtio n
is worth looking into. Th e arbitrariness or the linguistic sign is orten
treated as synonymous with the conve ntionality or the relation of
rorm and meaning. As Lyons notes, however , the tw o term s are rar
rrom id entical. For in stance , in England the assoc iati on or wisdom
and owls is conventio nal but certainly not arbitrary (1977 : 104-5).
The possibility th at the relation or sign and object was not arbitrary
was recognized by Pierce in his notion or "icon " (that he should
describe the resemblan ce as "na tural" is illuminating , but inaccu rate
as it depe nds on cu ltural definitions or natural). Much atte nti on has
been given to these non-arbitrary , or 'mot ivated'. con nexions (e.g.
Ullmann 1962: 80-115) between rorm and meaning, ma ybe because
they held out the promise or being able to reduce mea ning to hard,
unam biguously de finable, relations. (There is anoth er set or relations,
closely related , but more resi stant to pigeon-holing - namely th ose
between meanings, which are custo marily sentenced to the woolly
world of ligures or speec h.) Once again the opposi tio n between
de Saussure and Pierce is not without deeper, ir orten unremarked

50

Mark Hobart

(cf. Boon 1979), philosophical roots. As Benoist has made plain, the
problem was aired as long ago as Plato's dialogue, the Cratylus, as to
whether the relation of names and things is natural or conventional;
whether thcy are based in physis or nomos (techne).
Hermogenes versus Cratylus, Saussure versus Pierce: western knowledge
since the Greeks has always put, and tried to solve, the question of the
relalionship between culture and nature. Is culture rooted in nature,
imitating it or emanating direct from it? Or, on the contrary, is culture at
variance with nature, absolutely cut ofT from it since the origin and
involved iII the process of always transforming, changing nature? The
matrix of this opposition between culture and nature is at the very matrix
of Western metaphysics. Metaphysics constitutes it, or, in virtue of a
circular argument, whose name is history, is constitued by it. (1978:

5960).

At every turn the close link between meaning, or signification, and

notions of essence, truth and so forth have lurked near the surface
of discussion, Benoist brings out clearly just how much cunent
debates depend on conveniently forgotten, or worse unrealized,
philosophical conundrums. Our intellectual ostrich seems to bury his
head ever deeper.
No account of signification would be complete without reference
to the work of Levi-Strauss, the more so as he has often been held to
dismiss meaning as unimportant to his style of analysis. Sperber has,
rightly, questioned how seriously the parallel between linguistics and
structuralism should be taken. For
. despite a terminology borrowed from linguistics, symbols are not
treated as signs. The symbolic signifler, freed from the signiflcd, is no
longer a real signifier except by a dubious metaphor whose only merit is
10 avoid the problem of the nature of sYlllbolislll , not to resolve it. (1975:
52 )'

Further
the fundamental question is no longer "What do symbols mcan?"
but 'How do they mean?'
. (but) the questillil 'how' presuppos~s the
knowledgc of 'what'. Saussurian semiology therefore docs not in principle
constitute <I radical bre<lk, but rather a shift in interest
. I S<ly 'in
principle' bec<luse in f<lct, Saussurian sellliotogists have completely left
aside the what-qucstion, and have studied not at all 'How do symbols
mean?', but rather 'How do symbols work'!' III this study they have
established, <Ill unknowing, that symbols work without meaning. Modern
semiology, and this is at once its weakness and its merit. has refuted the
principles on which it is founded. (1975: 51-2, emphases in the original)

The logical glue which holds together symbols, signs and meaning

Meaning or Moaning

51

seems in danger of dissolving. It also seems that metaphor, for

which Levi-Strauss has a penchant in his analyses, may also be an un
acknowledged part of his own method.
It is increasingly common to speak of a "paradox" in structuralist,
and semiotic, perspectives. After all "what is it that enables one to
say that language speaks, myth thinks, signs signify?" (Culler 1981:
31). At this point meaning once again creeps in.
Treating as signs objects or actions which have meaning within a culture,
semiotics attempts to identify the rules and conventions which ... make
possible the meanings which the phenomena have. Information about
meaning ... is there fore crucial ... (1981: 31)

Certain forms of communication may be reOective (cf. Jakobson

1960; Hawkes 1977: 81-7; Guirard 1975: 7) and threaten to violate
the codes on which they are founded, as may happen in poetry or
litcrature. In so doing it
. reveals a paradox inherent in the semiotic project and in the philo
sophic orientation of which it is the culmination. To account for the
signification of, shaH we say, a metaphor is to show how the relationship
between its forms and its meaning is already virtually present in the
systems of language and rhctoric ... Yet the value of metaphor ... lies
in its innovatory, inaugural force. Indeed, our whole notion or literaturc
makes it not a transcription of preexisting thoughts but a serics or radical
and inaugural acts ... The semiotics of literature thus gives rise to a 'de
constructive movement' in which each pole of an opposition can be used
to show that the othel is in error but in which the undecidable dialectic
gives rise to no synthesis because the antinomy is inherent in the very
structure of our language. ('uller 1981: 39)

My apologies for this long citation. It serves the purpose, though, of

making clear that the elegancies of post-structuralism look at times
very much like thc more palaeolithic versions of the hermeneutic
circle.
Why should approaches to meaning, however egregious they set
out to be, land up looking so similar" The reason may be that they
depend upon similar implicit metaphysical assumptions. Lyons
touches the point neatly when he asks simply whether the signifier
should "be defined as a physical or a mental entity?", or indeed
"what is the psychological or ontological status of the signified?"
(1977: 99). While semiotics may have started out as a critique of the
view that "concepts exist prior to and independently of their ex
pression" (Culler 1981: 40), they end up falling into the opposite
trap, for "expression now depends on the prior existence of a system
of signs" (1981: 40).' So, what status does what have? It ison this

52

Mark Ho bart

ques tion that th a t impenetrable writer, Derrida , to my mind makes

one of his most use ful suggestio ns. It is a pervasive "metaphysics of
prese nce" which crea tes these see ming paradoxes , or contradictions.
Th e problem may be see n to lie in the western tendency to
constru e being (what exists) in ternlS of what must be experienced as
present. The notion of mea ning, Derrid a argues, stems from this
metap hysics. For we tend to think of meaning as something present
to th e a wareness of a speaker (one migh t add the idea of awareness
itself is compound ed of prese nce) as wh at he " has in mind" (Culler
1979: 162) without recognizing how metaphorical our observation
is. Th e difficulty is th at th e image of container (mind) and contents
(mea nings, thoughts, id eas e tc.) is dangerously misleading as there
are no grounds seriously to hold this position except as metaphor.
Ye t th e two notions co nvenie ntly imp ly one another (Derrida 1979:
88ff.). If th e rela tion of signifier a nd signified is not simple substitu
ti on , but rat her involves mutual suppleme ntation as well, th en it no
longer becomes self-ev id ent tha t the proper sense of words, ra ther
th an th e figura tive, is origi nal (Benois t 1978: 29) . Put another way ,
how much is the priori ty we give to Iite r~1 meaning over, say, me ta
phorical due to our sense th at the former is somehow more "real"
or present? Th e supposed paradoxes of semiotics become expressed
in terms of figurative speec h.' It seems th a t we must pack our bags
yet agai n.
So far two th emes seem to run through approaches to mea ning.
Each theory tends to be grounded in another domain , so displacing
th e focus of inquiry. Saussurean schools of thought escape this in
part and make clear th e dic hotomy be tween internally a nd ex ternally
defined models. More ge nera ll y, wh atever th e a pproach, a t each turn
we are fa ced with problematic distinctio ns whic h have their roots
in the history of Western phil osop hy : the reality of the physical or
the mental ; the relation of focus an d context; na tural law agai nst
cultural preferences: th e esse ntial o r th e nominal.
Figures of speech would seem to by -pass the hybrid proble ms of
fo rm versus content by being cen tred abou t content , Or mea ning.
Th ey offer a classification of possible fo rms of rese mblance, and
associa ti on, and so a pote ntially unambiguous language of critica l
evaluation. Th is promise obviously depends all exactly what figures
of speech, or tropes, are or do; and the assumptions on which they
rest. With the tropological phase a t its peak, figures of speech are
being hailed as the new philosopher's stone - gall-stone to some
and th e problems tend to be sh oved asid e. Tropes may be brought to
bear on alm ost anything not only within th e study of discourse, but

Mean ing or Moaning?

S3

they ~re used to threaten the fo undations 01" our knowledge . They
are seen as the key to epis temological shi fts (Foucau lt 1970) ; they
ma y be constitutive of aU our thought (Ortony 1979 ; Lakoff &
J ohnson 1980): to the de light of many they offcr to turn Levi
Strauss's gay new struc tural dog into a mangy mongrel with a prom is
cuous pedigree reachin g back to Quintilian and Ari stotle (Cu ll er
198 1; Derrid a 1976, 1979 ; Sapir 1977, cf. Crocker 1977).
Th e problems start when we tr y to find out quite wh at tropes are.
Rh etori cia ns comm o nly ho ld the vast range to be red ucible to fo ur
main form s: me taph or, me tonymy, sy necdoc he and irony (t he order
is important as a sequence to Fouca ult) . In Sapir's scheme, me taph or
has two varieties: inte rn al based on shared properti es; and external
(or analogy) whcre properties a re secondary to the fo rm al co n
gru en ce of relationships. Th is latte r, he argues. is ce ntral to Levi
St rauss's analyses (\ 977). Me tonymy is often trea ted as contras ted
to metaphor: contiguity not shared property (Cu lle r 198 \: 189ff.).
Synecd oche is th e possibl e permutations of whol es (genus) and
parts (species), and underpins classifications (Sa pir 1977 : 12- 19) .
Irony is often held to sta nd apa rt. Th ere a re two obvious questions.
What kinds o f relationship fa ll to eac h trope? And how are the
tro pes related? For Sapir cause a nd effect, fo r insta nce, are meto
nymic (\ 977: 19-20) ; for Bu rke they are clea r examples of
synecdoche (\ 969: 508). Th e difficulty stems from how th e majo r
tropes th emselves are to be defined. J akobson reduces synecdoc he to
metonymy (19 56). Th e Belgian rhetoricians in Liege , Group 11 ,
after detailed review of th e fi eld , conclud ed that all me taph or ca n
be redu ced to synecdoch e (1970 French edn ; 1981 Eng lish).
In th e same year however, Genette traced synecdoche, me tonym y
and all other trop es back to metaph or (1970). Sin ce th en Eco has
completed the confu sion by derivi ng all metaphor from spurned
metonymy (1979). One might be fo rgiven for thinkin g th at wh om
God wishes to destroy, He first makes mad.
Why should such distinguished scholars disagree so strikingly ?
On e reason is that th e classical so urces th emselves sta rted from
diffe re nt positions (Aristotle 1941 ; Quintilian 192 1). What kind of
entit y (sic) are tropes in fa ct? Ofte n th ey are trea ted as a simple
classification of types of association: "buttern y-<oollec ting" in
Leac h's sarcasm. Many of the diffic ulties not ed above seem to stem
from taking a taxonomic view of tropes. Behind this lurks th e no w
faUl iliar ca tc h. Metaphor seems to be defined in terms of " essential
properties"; me tonymy as the workings of chan ce. Once aga in we
seem puUed towa rds the a byss of western metaph ysics. Sin ce Aris
to tle, in Derri da's view, ca tegories th emselves have been see n as the

r"
54

Mark Hobart

means by
. wlDeh being properly speaking is ex pressed in so far as it is expressed
through several twists. several tropes. The system or cat.egories is the
sys tem of th e ways in whic h being is construed . ( 1979: 91)

Figures of speecll seem to bring us back to the old problems of

what are properties? what is essential? what indeed is accident?
Derrida would push it further and see trop es as underlying those
"basic" kinds of category - subs tance , action , relation , space,
tim e, accide nt - through which westcrn philosophers try to capture
being.
Tropes seem to have more immedia te uses in creating words and
images, where non e were before. "Metaphor plugs the gaps in the
literal vocabulary" and so is a form of catachresis - the putting of
new senses into old word s (Black 1962 : 32). Such extensions may be
almost totally constitutive when conceiving the relation between
events in temlS of ideas like tim e. This raises the possibility that
language itself may be co nstrued metaphori ca lly. In English , Reddy
has argued that our impressions of language are largely structured by
the image of language as a container, the contents being ideas,
thoughts, feelings, or indeed meanings (1979 : 289). By pointing out
that alternatives are available to what he calls the "conduit
metaphor" , Red dy makes a strong case for the catachretic nature of
many of our core concepts (those noted above). Foucault has sough t
to generalize this kind of argument by applying it to how we
structure relations between classes - such as the sane and mad
(1967) - or even how our basic ideas of what constitutes an explana
tion are mad e up (1970). In this view it is the image of irony which
is now dominant. This produces a contrast between a surface and
an interior, such that the superficial is to be explained by a deeper
structure, as in th e Freud ian mod el of mind or in structuralism. The
doubling will allow alternative styles of analysis: the search for
formalism (perhaps Needha m 1978; 1980) as against some (hidden)
meauing (Geertz 1973). Metaphor seems then to make up how we
see th e world and how we set about studying it - eve n if we are not
sure what metap hor is.
This is not quite the e nd of the tale. With their Nietschean herit
age , the Fren ch post-structuralists - in a mood of fin d'epiSlhne
see no escape from the web of words, or tropes, what Jameson called
"the prison-house of language" (1972). This gallic gloom may be a
little premature. To reverie Davidson (1980) , let us wonder whether,
to use a principle of lack of charity, the turgid and co nvolute style
of these writer; does not serve to obscure their own Achilles' heels.

Mean;'lg or Moaning?

55

If re lationships and abstract issues are conceived catachretically , why

should this not hold good as well for the relationship between image
and referent in Foucault's and Derrida's own models? We seem near
to the self-refe rential paradox. What exactly is the relationship
between an epistem c and what it stru c tures; or language and to what
it relates? There is no reason that this must be confined to th e image
of a prison by which thougllt is kept in place . I t seems that their
discourse carries within it its own unexplored metaphor. Lovelace's
prisoner wondered whether iron bars made a cage. Why should they
not make a jemmy for a burglar, or a jail-breaker?
There is another way in which tropes may be understood. They
may be treated as ways of perceiving relationships and situations
from different per;pectives. As such they may cove r far broader
areas than formal categories and may represe nt general processes of
thinking. Burk e, for instance, sees the four major tropes as exa mples
of the more encompassing operations of: perspective, reduction ,
representation and dialectic (J 969). This would go SOme way to
explaining how, if they are treated as classes to be defined exten
sively , they run in to problems.
Th is is not, however, how tropes are understood by most writers.
Around th e terms for the main tropes seem to clu ster all those
metaphysical problems in Weste rn thought which have dogged
meaning throughout. Even the classification is fluid. For the sa me
distinctions may be linked to different figurative terms according
to one 's point of view. For in stance, the accidence often associated
with metonymy may link the latter to me taphor (through essential
as against contingent properties), or to sy necdoche (contingent
opposed to necessary connexion). At one level tropes come close,
it would seem, to simple modes of discrimination and associatio n.
As th ey are defined in so many ways it is hard to find neat fit, but
the four master tropes involve recognition re spectively of re se m
blance, relationship, classification and contrast' If the familiar
problems are posed (what is being talked about : essences, properties,
names etc.?), we seem to be back to the rondo of confused cla sses
of the rhetoricia ns.
Studying Western thought with th e aid of tropes may be highly
informative. For both are home-grown within the same culture. On
what grounds, one might ask, is it legitimate to export them to the
tropics? A horrible possibility occur; as to why structu ralism should
have the appearance of bein g so widely applicable. Is it that the main
tropes are truly cross-{;uJtural? This has yet to be shown; and there
are endless disputes as to how they are to be defined anyway. Or is it
just that most (perhaps all?) cu ltures have certain cogni tive

56

Mark Hobart

operatio ns in some form ? 1t would be hard to imagine a socie ty with

no notion of resembla nce (and so presumably the rudim ents for
making connexio ns whic h look like metaphor). Might it not be the
ostensible congru ence of these kinds of operation which all ows
apparent translatability? Is the stru cturalist cla im to be able to
decode myth accu rately from Indo nesia to South America t hen
false, because th e constru cts it uses regis ter only gross parall els? 1
suspect so. One would be fooUlardy indeed to assume, fo r instance
of rese mblan ce, that exactly what it is about a thing, or event, tha t
enables it to be compared is necessarily the same in all cu ltures. In
short, can we presume that o th er cu ltu res have precisely t he same
fo rmulations of rese mblance, relatio nship, class, contrast and so on?
Or are their views of wh at is essen tial, accidental, necessa ry and
more sufficiently id entical to our own that transla tion is unproblem
atic? There is sufficient prima facie evidence that ideas vary quite
enough - in classical In dian metaphysics as one example (lnden
1976; Potter 1977) - for it to be folly to assum e one's ow n cultu ral
co nstru cts ap ply across cultures instead of argu ing the case. Th ere is,
after all , no reason why translation shou ld be an all-or-nothing
busi ness. Why can the re not be degrees of understandi ng and mis
understanding? Part of the t rouble comes, it seems to me, from
treating the no tion of "com munication" as simple fact, not some
times as ide al only partly achieved. Because we dimly perceive so me
thing through t he crud e hom ology of formal opera tion s in different
cultures, we should not dupe ourselves that we understand very
mu ch. 1 think this is why tropes seem to offe r a panacea, and make
the formidabl e problem s of translation look spuriously easy. If this
is so, the sooner we move into a post-tropological age the better.
Weste rn philosoph ers m ay be excused ethnocentrism . Can
anthro pologists?
What , if anything, comes ou t of this look at th e philosophy of
meaning? Th e most surprising feature is how much is assumed, and
how much of this disclaimed. The elimi nation of metaphysics
perhaps, like marital fidelity, devou tly to be desi red - seems less
an ac tuality than wishful thinking. Does what we know fare any
better then than what we ho ld to exist? Th ere is, 1 think , a case to
answer that the lenses in our academic spectacles are forged more
figuratively th an we ofte n chose to adm it . On these grounds the
slightly facile image of an ethnography of philosophen; will have
served its purpose if it has help ed to change a tired perspective.
There are other bugbea rs afoo t. Wittgenstein's idea of the language
game may have its drawbacks , but it does describe rather well what

Meaning or Moaning?

57

academics sometimes do. Can we really talk of theories in general,

fo r instance of meaning, when some of t he more successfu l work at
best in limit ed situations? (This may be a sim ple aspec t of Quine's
point ( 1951) that th e entities which any theory assum es to exist
are those which co nstitute the range of t he t heory's variables.)
Theory may have to be very narrowly defined where successors on a
single subject inte rpret it such that it has different ranges of applica
tion. For example Burke's processua l view of figurative lan guage
saw it as framing most thought; whereas Sapir read Burke, or figures
of speech, as a formal classifIcation of symbO lic associations. A more
disturbing problem is what exactly is implied in the apparent univer
sality of application of our theore tical constructs. Is it, in fact,
evidence of the superior power of ou r analytica l frameworks? The
scale of Western aca demic resources are so grea t (Gellner 1973a),
compared to th e societies most anthrop ologists study, that it is
possible to oblitera te the nua nces of a cu lture while see ming to
explain it . What criteria are we to use to decide between riva l
theories , or transla tions (Hesse 1978)? It is easy to import our own
prin ciples of elegance, metaphysics or whatever to resolve th e matter.
In th e end, how sensitive will Levi-Strauss's analysis of South
Ame rican my t h tum out to be , a nd how mu ch /ese-majeste?
The te nsion between alternative positions may be renected in
differences be tw een philosophy and anthropology. Hollis ha s sta ted
one aspect of the problem clearly. He has argued that we are obliged
to assume id entica l criteria of rationality in other cultures, as we
would , in fact, be unable to know it , should altemative logics ex ist
(1970). An ana logous argument cou ld presumably be made for
meaning, but its implications are frightening. Wh at would be the
point of anthropology if, a p riori , we could never know if other
cultures had different ideas of reason or meaning, even if they
did? Part of the impasse stems from different concerns. As J under
stand Ho llis the philosophe r's br ief is to argue for parsimony , to
preven t t he world becomi ng unnccessarily , even hopelessly, compli
ca ted. Th e more e mpirical ant hropological brief is to keep as much as
possible of the subtle ty, and lack of clarity eve n, of cultural dis
course as she is spoke. Might it be that we try fa lsely to generalizc
issues beyond the en terprises in which thcy were postulated? At any
rate the cost to anthropology if we accept Ho llis's argument is so
high that it might well be preferable to sacrifice universal notions of
rationalit y, meaning or whatever instead.
On e aspect of the me taphy sics of prese nce is that argument is
sometimes read as claim to truth . This is strange. Usually o nl y works
of such monumental dullness that no one ca n be bothered to

58

Meaning or Moaning?

Mark Hobart

question (or read?) th em remain unchallenged. The better the

argument, often the more it provokes debate and eventually its own
reflllement or rejection. In this spiri t let me phrase a con clusion in an
extre me form, not beca use it is correct bu t in the hope that it will
stimulate others to produce better.
In taking mea ning as the theme , I chose one of many loose threads
which threaten to unravel the sweater of contemporary an thro
pological equivocation, cynically called theory. My arguments are
hardly new (Evans-Pritcllard , among others, has put the case far more
subtly). If they have any value though, then failure to consid er the
possibility that other cultures have other philosophies is, at the
least, a ghastly epistemological blund er. Western philosophy see ms
hopelessly caught in its own toils and anthropology is - as I am sure
its wiser proponents realized - our one chance of escaping the sheer
tedium of our own thought . Anthropology sta nd s little chance
though so long as it is bent upon castrating itself on every ru sting
knife of in tellectual fashion . As every anthropologist knows, the
life of the subject hangs on ethnograp hy, as this is our outlet from
onanistic ethnocentrism . Ethnography is not much use if it is no t
cri tical; and this critisicm has two aspects. Its obviou s face is th e
reflective considera tion of what to select from the richness of human
action and discourse . Its hidden, almost shunned, face is the possi
bility of reflecting on our own categories, our self-evident assump
tions _ call them philosophy or me taphysics if one will - by which
we can question the dreary shuffle which passes for the " rational"
grow th of knowledge. This is not a fo rlorn search for Shangri-La. For
as most ethnographers know, we glimpse through the dark glassily
real , and seemingly different , world s. Otherwise there is the grim
prospec t of peddling tilched fashions which become, like the
Cheshire Cat, long on face , short on body. Then talk of meaning
turns to moaning.
Notes
1 . My special th an ks must go to Proressor Martin Hollis who suggested this
ex pressio n and offered ma ny use ful COIl1 m ent s; <lnd to Dr Rut h Kempson
who gave help fu l criticism. The idio cies which remain are , of course, illY
own.

2, This version is roughly l he nrst half of the original paper , which was loa
long for the present format . In the second pa rt so me simple et hn ography
all Balinese id eas of mean in g and int en t iona lity was intro du ced to argue that
the kin ds or dirrerellce with western views were such as to ha ve led to wi ldly
e thnoceu Lric in LeepreLa ti o ns o f Balinese culture.
3. cf. Lyons 197 7: 17 71l. where th e relationship between namin g, reference,

59

de nota tion an d sense is looked in to, ro r purposes o f theories o r lingu istics.

4. Th e more recent work on speech ac ts an d conversational implica ture are no t
included in these rema rks and will receive fu ller treatment in a forthco ming
paper o n context.
5. There are so many diffe ren t fo rmulations of the he rmeneutic circle that it
wo uhJ seem to need a critical analysis all o r its own. My ai m is si.mpl y to
disab use the more tru stin g read er o f the rear that herm eneutics is Some
esote ric orthodoxy on which he so mehow missed oul. The debate within the
broad tradition of herm eneutics is too rich to serve as a fossilize d doorsto p
for " Interpretive Social Science" (Rabin ow & Sullivan 1979).
Restatin g th e terms o f the debate does no t help mu ch. To rea d context
as a se t of propositions raises Colli ngwoodian problems o r rreedorn from
pres uppositions and Quinean ones o r theo ry dependencC' . One may define
the hermeneutic ci rcle in similar language as: to understand X, one must
kn ow what state o f affairs would be describe d by X, and to kn ow that one
must first und erstand X. This puts great weight on "know" and " under
stand". (On e might argue backwa rds that the her meneutic ci rcle stems fro m
the attempt to reco ncile the two no tions .) "Understand " has always seemed
a proble matic idea to me and to be tinged wi th the meta phys ics o f presence
discussed below_
6. The relationship o f code, or co ntex l , to signs and symbols receives inleres tin g
treatment. " ... in contrast to what happens in a semiological dccoding, it is
not a qu es tio n of interpretin g symbo lic phenomena by mea ns of a contex t.
but ~ quite the contra ry - o r inte rpreting a conte xt by means o f sy mbolic
phen omena." (Sperber 1975: 70).
7. As Benoist points ou t , the structuralists seem for the most pa rt to ha ve
borr owed naively fro m linguistic models wi thout considerin g how fa r th ese
are rooted in western metaphysics. Derrida goes on ( 0 co nsider how de
Saussure's stress on th e spoken word as ag ain st the written is a product of
his assump ti on that th e prim acy of the former is somehow linked to its
greater " prese nce" to the expe riencing mind (Benoist 1978: 28 ; Culler 1981:
401 ; [)errida 1976). The idea tha I ex perience is a kind of prec ultural give n
migh t need defence in th e light of th e above. Culler (1 979: 1623 ) gives a
delightrul introdu ction to how Derrid a co pes with some or Zeno's paraJaxes
by Hying to show how fa r they depen d on presence as reall y real.
8. One many rea ch a similar position by way or " mot ivatio n" . Lyoll s, disc ussing
th e work of Pa rzig. shows that th e di rection in which the mea nin g of a
lexeme wilt be gcne rali zed cannot be det ermined by refe rence to motivatio n
alone , but depends upon metaphoric extension ( 1977: 264), itself a
problem,uic notion.
9 . By co ntrast I refer to the range or intelligiblc, indeed informa ti ve , compa ri
sons such as bitter-swee t, but hardl y bitterblue.

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