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Steve Hayes

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May 31, 2006, 5:27:30 AM5/31/06
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My son works in a bookshop, and yesterday a customer came in asking for a book
on Symbology by Prof Robert Langdon of Harvard University.

My son explained to him that there was no such book.

The customer pulled out a copy of "The da Vinci code", and pointed to page 21,
where it referred, in large capital letters, to "Robert Langdon, Professor of
Religious Symbology, Harvard University."

My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of fiction,
and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any books he wrote
were purely fictitious.

But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want this
book.

And of course it does say, at the beginning, "All descriptions of artwork,
architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

That means that the description of the document that says the American
University of Paris is presenting "An evening with Robert Langdon" is
accurate. It must be. It says so right there in the book.

A few years ago Professor Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious
Studies at the University of Calgary, noted that was a cult of the
"Necronomicon", the grimoire written by a mad Arab whose name sounds like that
of one of the leaders of the Taliban, as described in the works of H.P.
Lovecraft. It is kept in a sealed vault at the Miskatonic University in New
England. Perhaps the works of Professor Robert Langdon are kept there with it.

What about "symbology"? A modern British dictionary, Collins, says it is the
study of symbols. An older American dictionary (Funk & Wagnalls, 1927) says it
is the use of symbols, and that the study of symbols is "symbolics".

Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
have a chair in Symbology?

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 6:27:26 AM5/31/06
to

Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
> have a chair in Symbology?
>
The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.

Actually there is a real science of semiotics or semiology - it is the
medical study of signs in illness.

There is such a word as 'Symbology', though, it does mean the study of
symbols - it first appeared in the OED in 1840 and the last mention of
it is 1897. The Glasgow Herald mentions a 'Symbolist' in 1924 - which,
I suppose, rather says it all.

rmjon23

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May 31, 2006, 6:37:42 AM5/31/06
to

Steve Hayes wrote:
> A few years ago Professor Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious
> Studies at the University of Calgary, noted that was a cult of the
> "Necronomicon", the grimoire written by a mad Arab whose name sounds like that
> of one of the leaders of the Taliban, as described in the works of H.P.
> Lovecraft. >

Abdul Al-Hazred, who's "real" ENOUGH.

> What about "symbology"? A modern British dictionary, Collins, says it is the
> study of symbols. An older American dictionary (Funk & Wagnalls, 1927) says it
> is the use of symbols, and that the study of symbols is "symbolics".
>
> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
> have a chair in Symbology?

"Semiotics" was probably nixed by the editor. You can't ask Joey Sixer
to swallow something that sounds that arcane and so much like semen.
"Symbols is like these har wurds I be readin' naw!"

Gawd, I hate the Murrkin public and how easily they slip on a brown
shirt.


-rmjon23
Murrrrrka

John Dean

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May 31, 2006, 7:21:19 AM5/31/06
to
Steve Hayes wrote:
> My son works in a bookshop, and yesterday a customer came in asking
> for a book on Symbology by Prof Robert Langdon of Harvard University.
>
> My son explained to him that there was no such book.
>
> The customer pulled out a copy of "The da Vinci code", and pointed to
> page 21, where it referred, in large capital letters, to "Robert
> Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology, Harvard University."
>
> My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of
> fiction, and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any
> books he wrote were purely fictitious.
>
> But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want
> this book.

Your son missed an opportunity to sell the customer something by one of Prof
Langdon's "colleagues" like:

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=528480385&searchurl=bx%3Doff%26sts%3Dt%26ds%3D30%26bi%3D0%26y%3D10%26tn%3Dsymbology%26x%3D71%26sortby%3D2

http://tinyurl.com/nzhaa

Astute booksellers shouldn't let these rubes get away and waste their money
elsewhere.
--
John Dean
Oxford


Adam Funk

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May 31, 2006, 7:20:41 AM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> A few years ago Professor Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious
> Studies at the University of Calgary, noted that was a cult of the
> "Necronomicon", the grimoire written by a mad Arab whose name sounds like that
> of one of the leaders of the Taliban, as described in the works of H.P.
> Lovecraft. It is kept in a sealed vault at the Miskatonic University in New
> England. Perhaps the works of Professor Robert Langdon are kept there with it.

Maybe this is the dark sekrit of the BPL!

Steve Hayes

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May 31, 2006, 7:38:09 AM5/31/06
to
On 31 May 2006 03:27:26 -0700, "Peter H.M. Brooks"
<Peter.H....@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>>
>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
>> have a chair in Symbology?
>>
>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.

Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.

>Actually there is a real science of semiotics or semiology - it is the
>medical study of signs in illness.
>
>There is such a word as 'Symbology', though, it does mean the study of
>symbols - it first appeared in the OED in 1840 and the last mention of
>it is 1897. The Glasgow Herald mentions a 'Symbolist' in 1924 - which,
>I suppose, rather says it all.

But is there a chair?


--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius

Steve Hayes

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May 31, 2006, 7:44:12 AM5/31/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 12:21:19 +0100, "John Dean" <john...@fraglineone.net>
wrote:

>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of
>> fiction, and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any
>> books he wrote were purely fictitious.
>>
>> But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want
>> this book.
>
>Your son missed an opportunity to sell the customer something by one of Prof
>Langdon's "colleagues" like:

<snip>

>Astute booksellers shouldn't let these rubes get away and waste their money
>elsewhere.

Aye, but it was published in 1960. Time for a reprint, perhaps. They could sue
Dan Brown and it would sell like hot cakes.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 7:45:26 AM5/31/06
to

Steve Hayes wrote:
> On 31 May 2006 03:27:26 -0700, "Peter H.M. Brooks"
> <Peter.H....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Steve Hayes wrote:
> >>
> >> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
> >> have a chair in Symbology?
> >>
> >The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
> >Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
> >writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>
> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.
>
Yes - I think he is rather aware of his situation - he writes good
books too, despite them being a bit 'da Vinci Code'ish.

>
> >Actually there is a real science of semiotics or semiology - it is the
> >medical study of signs in illness.
> >
> >There is such a word as 'Symbology', though, it does mean the study of
> >symbols - it first appeared in the OED in 1840 and the last mention of
> >it is 1897. The Glasgow Herald mentions a 'Symbolist' in 1924 - which,
> >I suppose, rather says it all.
>
> But is there a chair?
>
Probably. Are you wanting to sign up for a course?

Peter Duncanson

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May 31, 2006, 7:57:45 AM5/31/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 11:27:30 +0200, Steve Hayes
<haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>My son works in a bookshop, and yesterday a customer came in asking for a book
>on Symbology by Prof Robert Langdon of Harvard University.
>
>My son explained to him that there was no such book.
>
>The customer pulled out a copy of "The da Vinci code", and pointed to page 21,
>where it referred, in large capital letters, to "Robert Langdon, Professor of
>Religious Symbology, Harvard University."
>
>My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of fiction,
>and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any books he wrote
>were purely fictitious.
>
>But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want this
>book.

It is clearly time for someone (or a group) at Harvard University to
hit the wordprocessor and produce a book, aimed at the
non-specialist reader, "Religious Symbology, by Professor Robert
Langdon". Both the author and the university could make money.

The author and publisher of "The da Vinci code" could hardly
complain.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.u.e)

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 8:02:30 AM5/31/06
to
It needn't be the University. You could publish the book yourself.
Prof. Langdon could be Professor at Harvard University, Ruritania, in
fact he probably is - they'd be quite keen on Symbolism there, you can
be sure.

Ferdi Greyling

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May 31, 2006, 8:23:47 AM5/31/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 11:27:30 +0200, Steve Hayes
<haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:


<<>My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of
fiction,
>and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any books he wrote
>were purely fictitious.
>
>But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want this
>book.>>

He should have given him a Mickey Mouse comic and told him it is the
prof in code.

Adam Funk

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May 31, 2006, 8:29:42 AM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Peter H.M. Brooks <Peter.H....@gmail.com> wrote:

>> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.
>>
> Yes - I think he is rather aware of his situation - he writes good
> books too, despite them being a bit 'da Vinci Code'ish.

As I said in ARK a while back, when I read TDVC, I kept thinking
Umberto Eco, Robert Anton Wilson and Thomas Pynchon did this so much
better.

Adam Funk

unread,
May 31, 2006, 8:26:29 AM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>
> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.

And I recently read "The Island of the Day Before", which includes the
following amusing passage:

--> For the captain it was obvious that the books, having
--> belonged to a plague victim, were agents of infection. The
--> plague is transmitted, as everyone knows, through venenific
--> unguents, and he had read of people who died by wetting a
--> finger with saliva as they leafed through works whose pages
--> had in fact been smeared with a poison.

Far out -- I wonder where the captain read that?

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 8:38:54 AM5/31/06
to
Clearly, then, you were right about at least one of them then...

Matthew Huntbach

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May 31, 2006, 8:39:46 AM5/31/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006, Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> Peter Duncanson wrote:

>> It is clearly time for someone (or a group) at Harvard University to
>> hit the wordprocessor and produce a book, aimed at the
>> non-specialist reader, "Religious Symbology, by Professor Robert
>> Langdon". Both the author and the university could make money.
>>
>> The author and publisher of "The da Vinci code" could hardly
>> complain.

> It needn't be the University. You could publish the book yourself.
> Prof. Langdon could be Professor at Harvard University, Ruritania, in
> fact he probably is - they'd be quite keen on Symbolism there, you can
> be sure.

Ah, "Fly Fishing" by J.R. Hartley

Matthew Huntbach

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 9:08:22 AM5/31/06
to
A good quiz question comes to mind: Who was more a ghost than his ghost
[author]?

Peter Moylan

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May 31, 2006, 9:21:08 AM5/31/06
to
Steve Hayes wrote:
> My son works in a bookshop, and yesterday a customer came in asking for a book
> on Symbology by Prof Robert Langdon of Harvard University.
>
> My son explained to him that there was no such book.

Does he have "Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying"?

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer
reliably receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses.
The optusnet address still has about 2 months of life left.

smw

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May 31, 2006, 10:18:12 AM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>>Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
>>have a chair in Symbology?
>>
>
> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.

And semiotics is "bullshit" because?

Peter H.M. Brooks

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May 31, 2006, 10:44:17 AM5/31/06
to
You're right to question me. It isn't really bullshit, it would be more
accurate to call it horseshit. That is a set of vague theories that
sound nice, to people who like that sort of rhetoric, but have no firm
foundation, so ultimately add nothing to human knowledge.

Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
observations of the crashingly obvious.

If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon see!

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 11:10:46 AM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>
>>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University,
>>>> that is)
>>>> have a chair in Symbology?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>
>>
>> And semiotics is "bullshit" because?
>>
> You're right to question me. It isn't really bullshit, it would be more
> accurate to call it horseshit. That is a set of vague theories that
> sound nice, to people who like that sort of rhetoric, but have no firm
> foundation, so ultimately add nothing to human knowledge.

And you would include Albrecht Schoene's work on Baroque emblematics?

> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
> observations of the crashingly obvious.

In other words, either you don't understand it or you already knew?


>
> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon see!

I teach the subject.

John Lawler

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May 31, 2006, 11:21:29 AM5/31/06
to

As noted, there isn't any academic discipline of Symbology.
There is a word 'symbology' but it just means the arrangement
or system of symbols in a particular situation, e.g:

The symbology of John's Gospel is strikingly
different from that of the synoptic Gospels.

There's nothing wrong with the word per se, but it doesn't
denote an academic field of research, any more than (say)
etymology does. I once had to tell a student that there
was nowhere they could go to get a doctorate in etymology;
etymology means the history of words, and it's just one
of the many things that historical linguists do. One might
as well aspire to become an ear surgeon without becoming an
M.D. first.

One of the closest things to Symbology in academic fields
would be the field I happen to work in, Semantics. Another
would be Semiotics, which is not totally bullshit, btw. If
you're looking for some good non-bs semiotic work, try Eco's
'The Search for the Perfect Language', which is fascinating,
well-written (up to Eco's standards), and deeply scholarly.
And deals with symbology, among other things, though I forget
whether it ever uses the word.

Indeed, many of the symbolic and mythological constructs
from that book will be familiar to anyone from a.u.e and
a.e.u, since we come upon numerous posts seemingly informed
by them.

I agree, though, somebody is missing a bet in not having
written a book on Symbology that could sit side-by-side
with DVC.

-John Lawler U of Michigan Linguistics Dept
http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/disclaimers.html
#include disclaimers.h

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 11:29:33 AM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>
>> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
>> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
>> observations of the crashingly obvious.
>
> In other words, either you don't understand it or you already knew?
>
LOL! Tendentious bullshit is easy to recognise. People who are able and
do understand something are able to explain it clearly in simple terms.
People who don't understand something have to, perforce, conceal their
ignorance by writing complicated impressive sounding horseshit.

>>
>> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon
>> see!
>
> I teach the subject.
>
Oh, dear! What on earth led you to that problem?

What value do you think the subject has? I'm sure that if it has any
then an intelligent proponent of it can answer that in a few paragraphs
of straightforward prose to the satisfaction of a sceptic.


Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 11:32:06 AM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>> smw wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>>
>>>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic
>>>>> University, that is)
>>>>> have a chair in Symbology?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>>> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>>
>>>
>>> And semiotics is "bullshit" because?
>>>
>> You're right to question me. It isn't really bullshit, it would be
>> more accurate to call it horseshit. That is a set of vague theories
>> that sound nice, to people who like that sort of rhetoric, but have no
>> firm foundation, so ultimately add nothing to human knowledge.
>
> And you would include Albrecht Schoene's work on Baroque emblematics?
>
You'd have to indicate what you think that that has added to human
knowledge and what firm foundation you think it was based on for me to
answer that.

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 12:06:31 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
>>> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
>>> observations of the crashingly obvious.
>>
>>
>> In other words, either you don't understand it or you already knew?
>
> >
> LOL! Tendentious bullshit is easy to recognise. People who are able and
> do understand something are able to explain it clearly in simple terms.

Absolutely. That's why any elementary school student can pick up any
journal in theoretical physics and swim right through.

> People who don't understand something have to, perforce, conceal their
> ignorance by writing complicated impressive sounding horseshit.

I noticed that you snipped my question concerning Schoene's work on
Baroque emblematics, but not many Americans can be expected to know it.
So how about the books you have read? Barthes' S/Z, or that rather
famous essay on wrestling? Both are, I think, very good.

>>> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon
>>> see!
>>
>>
>> I teach the subject.
>>
> Oh, dear! What on earth led you to that problem?

I'm in comparative literature; semiotics is one of the most fruitful
approaches to meaning.

> What value do you think the subject has? I'm sure that if it has any
> then an intelligent proponent of it can answer that in a few paragraphs
> of straightforward prose to the satisfaction of a sceptic.

I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics is
the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the French
flag.

Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see how
the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the work
that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously performed
under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why I
brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous examples).
But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under it, as
would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its best,
semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming a large
store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 12:10:18 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

Eh, I was just wondering why you had snipped that question. I don't
think you can understand much of Baroque art or architecture without it
(or something like it). The period is full of signs signifying other
signs (to refer back to the definition you asked for). Allegories,
heraldry, illustrated books, paintings, poetry -- if it's from that
period, it is certain to include signs that would have been utterly
obvious to contemporaries and are equally utterly incomprehensible to
us. Schoene's handbook of 16th and 17th century emblems is a classic. I
don't think it's translated, though (which in itself would be reason
enough to continue expecting art historians to learn German...)

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 12:59:06 PM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>> smw wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
>>>> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
>>>> observations of the crashingly obvious.
>>>
>>>
>>> In other words, either you don't understand it or you already knew?
>>
>> >
>> LOL! Tendentious bullshit is easy to recognise. People who are able
>> and do understand something are able to explain it clearly in simple
>> terms.
>
> Absolutely. That's why any elementary school student can pick up any
> journal in theoretical physics and swim right through.
>
Good point, but poor comparison. Physics uses the language of
mathematics (as do a number of other disciplines) anybody able to speak
that can, indeed, pick up such a journal and get a fairly good idea.

If you're claiming that semiotics uses a different language, then maybe
you can say what it is and why it is necessary. As far as I'm aware it
uses neither symbolic logic, nor mathematics.


>
>> People who don't understand something have to, perforce, conceal their
>> ignorance by writing complicated impressive sounding horseshit.
>
> I noticed that you snipped my question concerning Schoene's work on
> Baroque emblematics, but not many Americans can be expected to know it.
> So how about the books you have read? Barthes' S/Z, or that rather
> famous essay on wrestling? Both are, I think, very good.
>

I've no idea what Yanks do, or don't, know, but I fail to see how it is
relevant.

I answered, or, rather, responded to, your question in a later post.


>
>>>> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll
>>>> soon see!
>>>
>>>
>>> I teach the subject.
>>>
>> Oh, dear! What on earth led you to that problem?
>
> I'm in comparative literature; semiotics is one of the most fruitful
> approaches to meaning.
>

Ah, it makes more sense now. Comparative literature can be approached in
different ways, it is true. You like what semiotics does for you and
claim that it is fruitful - not in determining meaning, nor in
understanding something, but, as you say 'approaching meaning'.
Describing an important philosophical question, 'meaning', a having a
fruitful approach through semiotics suggests to me that you aren't
dealing with meaning at all. You're rather enjoying the emotion of
feeling that you have approached it - a very, very, different matter
and, in my view, not a very useful one.


>
>> What value do you think the subject has? I'm sure that if it has any
>> then an intelligent proponent of it can answer that in a few
>> paragraphs of straightforward prose to the satisfaction of a sceptic.
>
> I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics is
> the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
> signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
> propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the French
> flag.
>
> Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see how
> the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the work
> that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously performed
> under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why I
> brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous examples).
> But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under it, as
> would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its best,
> semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming a large
> store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.
>

The humanities managed to proceed quite happily without it, for a
considerable time. How do you believe that semiotics as a subject (as
opposed to simply more of an awareness of meaning) has added value to this?

Presuming lots of impressive knowledge and then showing it off is indeed
an academic pastime. To some it may appear scholarly. If it is simply an
impressive piece of vocal conjuring, it is perfectly appropriate to a
dinner party. It isn't scholarship, though, unless it embodies some
rigour and produces some results. That is, it isn't horseshit.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 1:04:23 PM5/31/06
to
How did the poor artists and architects living in the late renaissance
manage then? Presumably they had 'something like it', as you say.
Wouldn't it be more sensible to see and understand these things in their
terms than to invent something like their terms to get there?

>
The period is full of signs signifying other
> signs (to refer back to the definition you asked for). Allegories,
> heraldry, illustrated books, paintings, poetry -- if it's from that
> period, it is certain to include signs that would have been utterly
> obvious to contemporaries and are equally utterly incomprehensible to
> us. Schoene's handbook of 16th and 17th century emblems is a classic. I
> don't think it's translated, though (which in itself would be reason
> enough to continue expecting art historians to learn German...)
>
Utterly incomprehensible?? Speak for yourself!

Indeed, the references are there and are important to understanding - it
isn't clear what semiotics adds, in itself, that good scholarship
doesn't. Surely Schoene's handbook is useful because it is a guide to a
naive modern, not because it is based on semiotics. A top Art Historian
ought to produce an equally valuable work. What does semiotics add that
is valuable?

Chris McGonnell

unread,
May 31, 2006, 1:24:15 PM5/31/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 13:26:29 +0100, Adam Funk wrote:

>On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>>writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>
>> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.
>
>And I recently read "The Island of the Day Before", which includes the
>following amusing passage:

I remember reviewing that book, good times, good times.

>--> For the captain it was obvious that the books, having
>--> belonged to a plague victim, were agents of infection. The
>--> plague is transmitted, as everyone knows, through venenific
>--> unguents, and he had read of people who died by wetting a
>--> finger with saliva as they leafed through works whose pages
>--> had in fact been smeared with a poison.
>
>Far out -- I wonder where the captain read that?

I'd bet Eco grinned as he wrote it, knowing the captain lacked a Time
Tunnel and daring the reader to figure that out and say, "Wha?"

--
Chris McG.
Harming humanity since 1951.
"What do you expect from a bunch of kiwi smoking sheep herders?" --
oTTo


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Steve Hayes

unread,
May 31, 2006, 1:37:55 PM5/31/06
to

In "Name of the rose", of course.

Steve Hayes

unread,
May 31, 2006, 1:42:08 PM5/31/06
to

The BPL?

Mike Lyle

unread,
May 31, 2006, 1:46:18 PM5/31/06
to

smw wrote:
[...]

> I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics is
> the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
> signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
> propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the French
> flag.
>
> Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see how
> the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the work
> that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously performed
> under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why I
> brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous examples).
> But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under it, as
> would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its best,
> semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming a large
> store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.

Back in the bad old days when we were ignorant savages, we used to call
that "reading".

--
Mike.

Wordsmith

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:07:41 PM5/31/06
to

Steve Hayes wrote:
> My son works in a bookshop, and yesterday a customer came in asking for a book
> on Symbology by Prof Robert Langdon of Harvard University.
>
> My son explained to him that there was no such book.
>
> The customer pulled out a copy of "The da Vinci code", and pointed to page 21,
> where it referred, in large capital letters, to "Robert Langdon, Professor of
> Religious Symbology, Harvard University."
>
> My son pointed out, politely, that "The da Vinci code" is a work of fiction,
> and so Prof Robert Langdon is a fictional character, and any books he wrote
> were purely fictitious.
>
> But the customer is most insistent. It says so right here, and I want this
> book.
>
> And of course it does say, at the beginning, "All descriptions of artwork,
> architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."
>
> That means that the description of the document that says the American
> University of Paris is presenting "An evening with Robert Langdon" is
> accurate. It must be. It says so right there in the book.

>
> A few years ago Professor Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious
> Studies at the University of Calgary, noted that was a cult of the
> "Necronomicon", the grimoire written by a mad Arab whose name sounds like that
> of one of the leaders of the Taliban, as described in the works of H.P.
> Lovecraft. It is kept in a sealed vault at the Miskatonic University in New
> England. Perhaps the works of Professor Robert Langdon are kept there with it.
>
> What about "symbology"? A modern British dictionary, Collins, says it is the
> study of symbols. An older American dictionary (Funk & Wagnalls, 1927) says it
> is the use of symbols, and that the study of symbols is "symbolics".

>
> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
> have a chair in Symbology?


Very amusing anecdote. You know, when I first began reading Jorge Luis
Borges, I
was amazed by his erudition; he would pack his tales with references to
odd-sounding
old books that I was all atwitter about reading. I'd go to various
libraries in quest of
finding them. My quest was in vain! Borges was a tricky writer: he
embedded many
fictional references into his yarns to lend them an air of
"verisimilitude" they otherwise
wouldn't have had. Don't get me wrong, though. JLB, trickster though
he was, wasn't
just a fabulator of bogus sources; he was, in reality, a genius who
read many *actual*
books too! One must be a dogged documentarian to be a cooker-upper of
phony,
albeit real-sounding, references.

W

PS Do you think the Quester for Langdon might like Borges? Harharhar!

>
>
> --
> Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
> E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:15:28 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:
...


>>
>> I'm in comparative literature; semiotics is one of the most fruitful
>> approaches to meaning.
>
> >
> Ah, it makes more sense now. Comparative literature can be approached in
> different ways, it is true. You like what semiotics does for you and
> claim that it is fruitful - not in determining meaning, nor in
> understanding something, but, as you say 'approaching meaning'.
> Describing an important philosophical question, 'meaning', a having a
> fruitful approach through semiotics suggests to me that you aren't
> dealing with meaning at all. You're rather enjoying the emotion of
> feeling that you have approached it - a very, very, different matter
> and, in my view, not a very useful one.

Apparently people have been telling you that literary meaning can be
determined rather than approached. I suspect they threw a bottle of
snake oil into the deal.


>
>>
>>> What value do you think the subject has? I'm sure that if it has any
>>> then an intelligent proponent of it can answer that in a few
>>> paragraphs of straightforward prose to the satisfaction of a sceptic.
>>
>>
>> I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics
>> is the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
>> signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
>> propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the
>> French flag.
>>
>> Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see
>> how the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the
>> work that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously
>> performed under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is
>> why I brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous
>> examples). But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall
>> under it, as would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology.
>> At its best, semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense,
>> presuming a large store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical
>> knowledge.
>>
> The humanities managed to proceed quite happily without it, for a
> considerable time.

Well, no, they didn't. They just didn't consolidate it into a
sub-discipline.


> How do you believe that semiotics as a subject (as
> opposed to simply more of an awareness of meaning) has added value to this?

To me, an increased awareness of meaning or its production is a very
fine thing. I have no idea what you mean by "semiotics as a subject."


>
> Presuming lots of impressive knowledge and then showing it off is indeed
> an academic pastime. To some it may appear scholarly. If it is simply an
> impressive piece of vocal conjuring, it is perfectly appropriate to a
> dinner party. It isn't scholarship, though, unless it embodies some
> rigour and produces some results. That is, it isn't horseshit.

In other words, you don't have the slightest interest in learning
anything about the subject you so happily hold forth on. I suspected as
much from your first contribution, but was led astray by what seemed to
be a genuine question.

Wordsmith

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:18:11 PM5/31/06
to

> But is there a chair?

The word is not the thing.

W

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:18:39 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:

>>>> And you would include Albrecht Schoene's work on Baroque emblematics?
>>>>
>>> You'd have to indicate what you think that that has added to human
>>> knowledge and what firm foundation you think it was based on for me
>>> to answer that.
>>
>>
>> Eh, I was just wondering why you had snipped that question. I don't
>> think you can understand much of Baroque art or architecture without
>> it (or something like it).
>
> >
> How did the poor artists and architects living in the late renaissance
> manage then? Presumably they had 'something like it', as you say.
> Wouldn't it be more sensible to see and understand these things in their
> terms than to invent something like their terms to get there?

Do you ever read to the end of a post before you begin to reply? Any
culture's semiotic system is intelligible to its members, even if they
can't articulate its construction. Some of us are interested in the way
meaning is made. You're not, fine. But why crap on people who are?

> >
> The period is full of signs signifying other
>
>> signs (to refer back to the definition you asked for). Allegories,
>> heraldry, illustrated books, paintings, poetry -- if it's from that
>> period, it is certain to include signs that would have been utterly
>> obvious to contemporaries and are equally utterly incomprehensible to
>> us. Schoene's handbook of 16th and 17th century emblems is a classic.
>> I don't think it's translated, though (which in itself would be reason
>> enough to continue expecting art historians to learn German...)
>>
> Utterly incomprehensible?? Speak for yourself!

Well, to you, of course, it's all open books.


>
> Indeed, the references are there and are important to understanding - it
> isn't clear what semiotics adds, in itself, that good scholarship
> doesn't.

Good semiotics is good scholarship.

> Surely Schoene's handbook is useful because it is a guide to a
> naive modern, not because it is based on semiotics. A top Art Historian
> ought to produce an equally valuable work. What does semiotics add that
> is valuable?

It _is_ a work of semiotics, not "based on" semiotics.

Perhaps you could explain what you think semiotics is.
>

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:20:09 PM5/31/06
to

Mike Lyle wrote:

You used to call what "reading"? Semiotics? Blumenberg? Presuming?
Transdisciplinary knowledge?

Wordsmith

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:21:48 PM5/31/06
to

In a restroom stall, probably...right next to the seat liner dispenser.

W

Michael Zeleny

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:23:59 PM5/31/06
to

Your original imputation of bullshit was spot on. Semiotics is bullshit
because it purports to interpret signs without recourse to general laws
borne out by success in specific interpretive agenda of law, medicine,
forensics, or politics. All undisciplined interpretation is susceptible
to the counterpart of Socrates' argument against according the status
of a theoretical art (technê) to rhetoric. Just as the composition and
delivery of persuasive discourse is the production of flattery, so its
interpretation is the consumption of flattery. In neither case is there
any ground for speaking of theories and laws of cozening human whimsy.

> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon see!

She already has, with no gain in vision. As the Austrian general put it
to his German colleague, the situation is hopeless, but not serious --
"Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst."

Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/

Mikado

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:24:31 PM5/31/06
to

> He should have given him a Mickey Mouse comic and told him it is the
> prof in code.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Wordsmith

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:28:59 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> Steve Hayes wrote:
> >
> > Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
> > have a chair in Symbology?
> >
> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>
> Actually there is a real science of semiotics or semiology - it is the
> medical study of signs in illness.

It's not just medical. It encompasses *all* signs. I've read a few
books about it.

W

Mike Lyle

unread,
May 31, 2006, 2:38:04 PM5/31/06
to

God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.) Yes. Back then, we used to
read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked to
discover that we didn't understand them.

--
Mike.

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:07:51 PM5/31/06
to

Mike Lyle wrote:

Neither a man nor young, just wondering about the antecedent of "that,"
which remains a mystery. That said, any interpretative school consists
of "reading." So much so that these days, interpretations themselves are
called "readings."

Talkign, reading and writing about books is what academics in bookish
fields do. I assume they had universities "back then"?

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:11:32 PM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>> smw wrote:
> ...
>>>
>>> I'm in comparative literature; semiotics is one of the most fruitful
>>> approaches to meaning.
>>
>> >
>> Ah, it makes more sense now. Comparative literature can be approached
>> in different ways, it is true. You like what semiotics does for you
>> and claim that it is fruitful - not in determining meaning, nor in
>> understanding something, but, as you say 'approaching meaning'.
>> Describing an important philosophical question, 'meaning', a having a
>> fruitful approach through semiotics suggests to me that you aren't
>> dealing with meaning at all. You're rather enjoying the emotion of
>> feeling that you have approached it - a very, very, different matter
>> and, in my view, not a very useful one.
>
> Apparently people have been telling you that literary meaning can be
> determined rather than approached. I suspect they threw a bottle of
> snake oil into the deal.
>
Not at all. They simply pointed out that writers, odd as you might think
this to be, generally don't write in order not to communicate. It is
non-writers that go out of their way to be obscure enough to conceal
their ignorance. Consequently, if you are reading the work of writers,
you don't need to stalk their meaning as you might a grease covered cat
burglar - you can take them at their word, you can trust most of their
references and, if you've read a bit of other work in the period, you
can interpret the symbols they use.

It's called literary appreciation. It still exists, despite the
mountains of horseshit built up to try to stifle it.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:17:26 PM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>>>> What value do you think the subject has? I'm sure that if it has any
>>>> then an intelligent proponent of it can answer that in a few
>>>> paragraphs of straightforward prose to the satisfaction of a sceptic.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics
>>> is the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
>>> signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
>>> propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the
>>> French flag.
>>>
>>> Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see
>>> how the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the
>>> work that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously
>>> performed under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is
>>> why I brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous
>>> examples). But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall
>>> under it, as would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology.
>>> At its best, semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense,
>>> presuming a large store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical
>>> knowledge.
>>>
>> The humanities managed to proceed quite happily without it, for a
>> considerable time.
>
> Well, no, they didn't. They just didn't consolidate it into a
> sub-discipline.
>
Ah, so there wasn't any invention, any new finding or any originality -
just consolidation. That'd explain its aridity then.

>
>
>> How do you believe that semiotics as a subject (as opposed to simply
>> more of an awareness of meaning) has added value to this?
>
> To me, an increased awareness of meaning or its production is a very
> fine thing. I have no idea what you mean by "semiotics as a subject."
>
You have no idea? How then could you, a paragraph above, claim that 'it'
(semiotics, that is) hadn't been consolidated into a sub-discipline?
Do you consider 'subject' and 'sub-discipline' to be somehow so disjunct
as to admit no common understanding?

>
>>
>> Presuming lots of impressive knowledge and then showing it off is
>> indeed an academic pastime. To some it may appear scholarly. If it is
>> simply an impressive piece of vocal conjuring, it is perfectly
>> appropriate to a dinner party. It isn't scholarship, though, unless it
>> embodies some rigour and produces some results. That is, it isn't
>> horseshit.
>
> In other words, you don't have the slightest interest in learning
> anything about the subject you so happily hold forth on. I suspected as
> much from your first contribution, but was led astray by what seemed to
> be a genuine question.
>
No. In other words you can provide no defence for it and run away, quite
unable to show how it isn't horseshit.

I am genuinely ready for an elegant and scholarly defence against the
charge. I'm certainly not expecting it and should be gobsmacked if it
appeared. However, I can honestly say that, if it did, I should change
my mind.

Until then, though, I certainly shan't waste more of my time reading
horseshit. If a proponent of the subject can't be bothered, or is quite
unable, to provide an argument for it having any value then I think we
can take that as a pretty convincing demonstration that it is best left
alone!

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:20:07 PM5/31/06
to
Wordsmith wrote:
>> But is there a chair?
>
> The word is not the thing.
>
The word, is, not the thing.

or

The word is, not the thing.

or

The word is not; the thing!

or

The, word is, not the thing.
?

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:29:37 PM5/31/06
to
smw wrote:
>
>
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>> smw wrote:
>
>>>>> And you would include Albrecht Schoene's work on Baroque emblematics?
>>>>>
>>>> You'd have to indicate what you think that that has added to human
>>>> knowledge and what firm foundation you think it was based on for me
>>>> to answer that.
>>>
>>>
>>> Eh, I was just wondering why you had snipped that question. I don't
>>> think you can understand much of Baroque art or architecture without
>>> it (or something like it).
>>
>> >
>> How did the poor artists and architects living in the late renaissance
>> manage then? Presumably they had 'something like it', as you say.
>> Wouldn't it be more sensible to see and understand these things in
>> their terms than to invent something like their terms to get there?
>
> Do you ever read to the end of a post before you begin to reply?
>
Yes.

>
> Any culture's semiotic system is intelligible to its members, even if they
> can't articulate its construction.
>
Really? That seems a highly optimistic view. I could offer several
thousand counter examples, but the fact that anybody fails an exam ever
is sufficient.

>
> Some of us are interested in the way meaning is made. You're not, fine. But why crap on people who are?
>
Meaning is made? Eh? You're quite sure about that, are you? There is
quite a strong argument for a platonic view in which meaning is discovered.

I'm interested in meaning. Very interested, as a matter of fact. Which
is why I have so little patience for horseshit pretending to be
interested, but actually fart-arsing around in a pretentious manner.

That's why.


>
>> >
>> The period is full of signs signifying other
>>
>>> signs (to refer back to the definition you asked for). Allegories,
>>> heraldry, illustrated books, paintings, poetry -- if it's from that
>>> period, it is certain to include signs that would have been utterly
>>> obvious to contemporaries and are equally utterly incomprehensible to
>>> us. Schoene's handbook of 16th and 17th century emblems is a classic.
>>> I don't think it's translated, though (which in itself would be
>>> reason enough to continue expecting art historians to learn German...)
>>>
>> Utterly incomprehensible?? Speak for yourself!
>
> Well, to you, of course, it's all open books.
>

I can tell you're from the black and white school of 'thinking'.

It'll come as a surprise, I know, but, actually, there is a vast tract
of interesting country between an 'open book' and 'utterly
incomprehensible'. If you, that is, value the meaning of either phrase
in any meaningful way.


>>
>> Indeed, the references are there and are important to understanding -
>> it isn't clear what semiotics adds, in itself, that good scholarship
>> doesn't.
>
> Good semiotics is good scholarship.
>

And good fences make good neighbours. What other scholarship are you
aware of? How do you judge scholarship? Could you provide any evidence
for your assertion - it seems a remarkably broad and bland one?


>
>> Surely Schoene's handbook is useful because it is a guide to a naive
>> modern, not because it is based on semiotics. A top Art Historian
>> ought to produce an equally valuable work. What does semiotics add
>> that is valuable?
>
> It _is_ a work of semiotics, not "based on" semiotics.
>
> Perhaps you could explain what you think semiotics is.
>

A work of X that isn't based on X. Now, there we have it - you're going
to tell me that you teach logic as well in a moment, aren't you [sorry,
just joking, and I know it's in poor taste].

Surely your answer, to be coherent, would have been to say that the
valuable work by a top Art Historian would, perforce, by your
definition, also be a work of semiotics? That would have been more of a
knock down argument in my view.


Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:33:13 PM5/31/06
to
Michael Zeleny wrote:
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> smw wrote:
>>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>
>>>>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University,
>>>>> that is)
>>>>> have a chair in Symbology?
>
>>>> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>>> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>
>>> And semiotics is "bullshit" because?
>
>> You're right to question me. It isn't really bullshit, it would be more
>> accurate to call it horseshit. That is a set of vague theories that
>> sound nice, to people who like that sort of rhetoric, but have no firm
>> foundation, so ultimately add nothing to human knowledge.
>>
>> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
>> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
>> observations of the crashingly obvious.
>
> Your original imputation of bullshit was spot on. Semiotics is bullshit
> because it purports to interpret signs without recourse to general laws
> borne out by success in specific interpretive agenda of law, medicine,
> forensics, or politics. All undisciplined interpretation is susceptible
> to the counterpart of Socrates' argument against according the status
> of a theoretical art (technę) to rhetoric. Just as the composition and

> delivery of persuasive discourse is the production of flattery, so its
> interpretation is the consumption of flattery. In neither case is there
> any ground for speaking of theories and laws of cozening human whimsy.
>
Thank you. I believed that I was correct.

>
>> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon see!
>
> She already has, with no gain in vision. As the Austrian general put it
> to his German colleague, the situation is hopeless, but not serious --
> "Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst."
>
There is an interesting question in here. A question of meaning, the
value of meaning and human beings.

Why do some people flee from meaning and flock instead to bullshit?

Why too are they in the majority?

Why are there still those who shun bullshit and seek meaning?

I think these are serious questions - with fundamental and profound
implications.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:37:23 PM5/31/06
to
Wordsmith wrote:
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>> Steve Hayes wrote:
>>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University, that is)
>>> have a chair in Symbology?
>>>
>> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>> writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>
>> Actually there is a real science of semiotics or semiology - it is the
>> medical study of signs in illness.
>
> It's not just medical. It encompasses *all* signs. I've read a few
> books about it.
>
For somebody interested in the subject, this is something of a howler.

The OED, an authority on the signifiers of signs, particular ones,
anyway, gives two meanings for semiotics, one is the real medical
science that I mention - they denote this definition by the numeral '1'.
The other meaning, the study of all signs, they show has a different
meaning, that of semiotics, which they signify by the numeral '2'.

You're confusing two quite different things that have the same sign -
shame on you!

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:41:39 PM5/31/06
to
Mike Lyle wrote:
>
>>>> Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see how
>>>> the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the work
>>>> that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously performed
>>>> under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why I
>>>> brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous examples).
>>>> But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under it, as
>>>> would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its best,
>>>> semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming a large
>>>> store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.
>>>
>>> Back in the bad old days when we were ignorant savages, we used to call
>>> that "reading".
>> You used to call what "reading"? Semiotics? Blumenberg? Presuming?
>> Transdisciplinary knowledge?
>
> God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.) Yes. Back then, we used to
> read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked to
> discover that we didn't understand them.
>
You've missed a trick. He specifically excluded from his question of
what you called 'reading' the phrase 'trans-historical' [check the quote
above, and you'll see]. Thus your historical (trans-historical since you
are still here and that sounds just so much more poncey) situation isn't
relevant. He thus never intended to question that it was what you called
reading, nor that you were right so to do, but, implicitly, sans the
trans-historical, he indicated that, really, you were right.

It's all in the close reading of the text. Give me a few more minutes
and I'll find swn agrees with me completely.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:45:21 PM5/31/06
to
Ah, an 'old boy' then. Now we know. [law of the excluded middle, you'll
be familiar with that, I'm sure, and agree with me, no matter what
piffling meaning you might have given to your belief in your femininity]

>
, just wondering about the antecedent of "that,"
> which remains a mystery. That said, any interpretative school consists
> of "reading." So much so that these days, interpretations themselves are
> called "readings."
>
You find quite a lot of things a 'mystery' and 'utterly obscure' don't
you. Think about that. Then think about your love of semiotics. You
might find a connection.

>
> Talkign, reading and writing about books is what academics in
> bookish fields do. I assume they had universities "back then"?
>
Sadly, yes, they did have Universities. The buildings they used to be in
are still standing. It's a tragedy.

Adam Funk

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:44:43 PM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Matthew Huntbach <m...@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

>> It needn't be the University. You could publish the book yourself.
>> Prof. Langdon could be Professor at Harvard University, Ruritania, in
>> fact he probably is - they'd be quite keen on Symbolism there, you can
>> be sure.
>
> Ah, "Fly Fishing" by J.R. Hartley

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,711002,00.html

--> "I really loved The Naked Chef, will I like The Naked
--> Lunch?"
-->
--> Assistant asks herself if Jamie Oliver did one called The
--> Naked Lunch. Looks on computer, asks colleague.
-->
--> "We think you mean the novel..."
-->
--> "Does it have good recipes in it?"
-->
--> "No, it's about drugs. It's really surreal and it's got
--> giant cockroaches in it. It's completely mental. You have to
--> think about what sort of book you really want, then we can
--> help you find it."

Adam Funk

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:52:29 PM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 31 May 2006 13:26:29 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>>Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>>>writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>>
>>> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.
>>
>>And I recently read "The Island of the Day Before", which includes the
>>following amusing passage:
>>
>>--> For the captain it was obvious that the books, having
>>--> belonged to a plague victim, were agents of infection. The
>>--> plague is transmitted, as everyone knows, through venenific
>>--> unguents, and he had read of people who died by wetting a
>>--> finger with saliva as they leafed through works whose pages
>>--> had in fact been smeared with a poison.
>>
>>Far out -- I wonder where the captain read that?
>
> In "Name of the rose", of course.

It was meant as a rhetorical question.

Adam Funk

unread,
May 31, 2006, 3:51:58 PM5/31/06
to
On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>>> A few years ago Professor Irving Hexham, of the Department of Religious
>>> Studies at the University of Calgary, noted that was a cult of the
>>> "Necronomicon", the grimoire written by a mad Arab whose name sounds like that
>>> of one of the leaders of the Taliban, as described in the works of H.P.
>>> Lovecraft. It is kept in a sealed vault at the Miskatonic University in New
>>> England. Perhaps the works of Professor Robert Langdon are kept there with it.
>>
>>Maybe this is the dark sekrit of the BPL!
>
> The BPL?

http://www.kibo.com/kibopost/bpl1.html

Paul Ilechko

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:02:37 PM5/31/06
to
Mike Lyle wrote:

>
> God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.)

When did Silke get to be a man, i wonder ?

> Yes. Back then, we used to
> read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked
> to discover that we didn't understand them.
>

Feeble attempts at being patronizing were also popular in "your day",
grandad ?

Michael Zeleny

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:05:05 PM5/31/06
to
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
> Michael Zeleny wrote:
>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>> smw wrote:
>>>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>>>> Steve Hayes wrote:

>>>>>> Does any university, anywhere (apart from the Miskatonic University,
>>>>>> that is) have a chair in Symbology?

>>>>> The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>>> Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for

>>>> And semiotics is "bullshit" because?

>>> You're right to question me. It isn't really bullshit, it would be more
>>> accurate to call it horseshit. That is a set of vague theories that
>>> sound nice, to people who like that sort of rhetoric, but have no firm
>>> foundation, so ultimately add nothing to human knowledge.
>>>
>>> Either proponents speak genuine bullshit - that is nonsensical, but
>>> impressive sounding sentences, full of jargon - or they make trite
>>> observations of the crashingly obvious.

>> Your original imputation of bullshit was spot on. Semiotics is bullshit
>> because it purports to interpret signs without recourse to general laws
>> borne out by success in specific interpretive agenda of law, medicine,
>> forensics, or politics. All undisciplined interpretation is susceptible
>> to the counterpart of Socrates' argument against according the status

>> of a theoretical art (technê) to rhetoric. Just as the composition and


>> delivery of persuasive discourse is the production of flattery, so its
>> interpretation is the consumption of flattery. In neither case is there
>> any ground for speaking of theories and laws of cozening human whimsy.

> Thank you. I believed that I was correct.

You are welcome. Wanting to be correct is indeed the key factor in
abstaining from the production of bullshit. Whereas your interlocutrix
is content to vie for attention.

>>> If you really want to know, get a book on the subject and you'll soon see!

>> She already has, with no gain in vision. As the Austrian general put it
>> to his German colleague, the situation is hopeless, but not serious --
>> "Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst."

> There is an interesting question in here. A question of meaning, the
> value of meaning and human beings.
>
> Why do some people flee from meaning and flock instead to bullshit?
>
> Why too are they in the majority?
>
> Why are there still those who shun bullshit and seek meaning?
>
> I think these are serious questions - with fundamental and profound
> implications.

We live in common law jurisdictions, whereby our cultures are beholden
to the proposition that the fairest harmony springs from difference.
The cheapest way of exploiting this circumstance is by cultivating
differences in the fields and endeavors not amenable to rigorous and
conclusive determinations of supremacy. Thus failed scientists become
lawyers; failed lawyers become writers; failed writers become critics;
failed critics become semioticians; and so on.

People who outgrow the cultivation of futility will turn to the love of
wisdom. For the majority of mankind, this growth stage will exceed a
single lifetime.

http://larvatus.livejournal.com/32821.html

Michael Zel...@post.harvard.edu
http://larvatus.livejournal.com/

Paul Ilechko

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:05:28 PM5/31/06
to
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

>> Any culture's semiotic system is intelligible to its members, even if
>> they can't articulate its construction.
>
> >
> Really? That seems a highly optimistic view. I could offer several
> thousand counter examples, but the fact that anybody fails an exam ever
> is sufficient.

What part of "can't articulate" did you not understand ?


>> Some of us are interested in the way meaning is made. You're not,
>> fine. But why crap on people who are?
>
> >
> Meaning is made? Eh? You're quite sure about that, are you? There is
> quite a strong argument for a platonic view in which meaning is discovered.

Not that you would want to give any arguments, would you? After all,
lets not get too *academic* about it ....

wavema...@yahoo.com

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:09:31 PM5/31/06
to

I dunno, but TIAMAT, is close to the greek word MATIA, which means
"eyes".
So, um, let me gracefully exit this lucifercon!!
Weeeeoooh!

Richard Maurer

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:25:12 PM5/31/06
to
It is apt that Wordsmith wrote:
The word is not the thing.


Word play is the thing wherein we'll catch
the cognoscenti of word bling.

-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Mac the Nice

unread,
May 31, 2006, 4:42:10 PM5/31/06
to

"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
news:e5kpp2$be8$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...

> Not at all. They simply pointed out that writers, odd as you might think
> this to be, generally don't write in order not to communicate.

Writers write in order to communicate.
James Joyce in *Finnegans Wake* for the 99.9% of readers does not
communicate.
Therefore, James Joyce is only .1% of a writer.

> It is non-writers that go out of their way to be obscure enough to conceal
> their ignorance.

All people who write are not "writers".
There is therefore that class of writers who are non-writers.
All non-writers are ignorant as may be known by the obscurity of what they
write.
James Joyce is obscure.
Therefore, James Joyce is ignorant,
And not even the .1% of a writer.

> Consequently, if you are reading the work of writers, you don't need to
> stalk their meaning as you might a grease covered cat burglar - you can
> take them at their word, you can trust most of their references and, if
> you've read a bit of other work in the period, you can interpret the
> symbols they use.

Symbols are constructed as being relevant only to the period in which they
are employed.
All literary allusion to Classical figures is relevant to nothing.

>
> It's called literary appreciation. It still exists, despite the mountains
> of horseshit built up to try to stifle it.

That statement being the veritable Mount Everest of it all.
--
Mackie
http://whosenose.blogspot.com
http://doo-dads.blogspot.com/

"A book is a mirror, if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to
peer out." - Georg Lichtenberg

--

.............................................................
> Posted thru AtlantisNews - Explore EVERY Newsgroup <
> http://www.AtlantisNews.com -- Lightning Fast!!! <
> Access the Most Content * No Limits * Best Service <

Mike Lyle

unread,
May 31, 2006, 5:12:29 PM5/31/06
to

You bet they were, son! Robust ones, too. Could do it all night, but of
course it came easier when I was young: it always does, but you don't
realise at the time. Now, do tell us how symbolism, imagery, shades and
layers of meaning, and y'know, kinda like allegory and allusion and
self-contradiction and stuff, have changed in the last few decades.
There's lots of fun at Finnegan's wake. Have creeps eventually
discovered an eighth type of ambiguity? (No, don't answer that.)

My alpologies to Silke, though: the mistake about sex (no, I don't mean
"gender") was a genuine sexist belly-flop into the initials trap, for
which I briefly but sharply flagellate myself.

--
Mike.

Mac the Nice

unread,
May 31, 2006, 5:32:43 PM5/31/06
to

"Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1149109949....@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> There's lots of fun at Finnegan's wake. Have creeps eventually
> discovered an eighth type of ambiguity? (No, don't answer that.)

As any half-way decent creep (or professor of Semiotics, like your average
"Humbert Humbert") knows, there is *no apostrophe* in _Finnegans Wake_.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141181265/sr=8-1/qid=1149110705/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8037404-0631127?%5Fencoding=UTF8

"It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it.
-Oscar Wilde-

Message has been deleted

Mike Lyle

unread,
May 31, 2006, 7:03:26 PM5/31/06
to

JF wrote:
> X-No-Archive: yes
>
> In message <447dffc0$0$25885$8826...@news.atlantisnews.com>, Mac the
> Nice <jpd...@hotmail.com> writes

>
> >As any half-way decent creep (or professor of Semiotics, like your average
> >"Humbert Humbert") knows, there is *no apostrophe* in _Finnegans Wake_.
>
> Even the chap who made the plague nailed on the mean little house in
> Bognor where James Joyce wrote the novel knew that.
>
OK, in short sentences, then, for the half-eared. (Footnote the
translingual ludicity; and I think there's an objective correlative in
there.) There's no apostrophe in _Finnegans Wake_. But there sure as
buggery is one in "Finnegan's wake". When I quote, I quote. When I
allude, however blatantly, I allude. But there are academic literary
people here claiming expertise in that subtle stuff.

--
Mike.

Gillian B

unread,
May 31, 2006, 7:43:08 PM5/31/06
to

"Peter H.M. Brooks"

>
> You're confusing two quite different things that have the same sign -
> shame on you!

That was fun, almost like watching a Bruce Lee movie- the disguised female
ninja, the attackers hidden on the rooftops etc.
Lets do it again!

Peter Moylan

unread,
May 31, 2006, 7:54:42 PM5/31/06
to
John Lawler wrote:

> One might as well aspire to become an ear surgeon without becoming an
> M.D. first.

Or to specialise in otics without first having studied semiotics.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org

Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain
eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer
reliably receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses.
The optusnet address still has about 2 months of life left.

Wordsmith

unread,
May 31, 2006, 8:02:31 PM5/31/06
to

I didn't realize there was a particular medical definition of it. Have
mercy!

W

Robert Bannister

unread,
May 31, 2006, 8:19:29 PM5/31/06
to
Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:


> It needn't be the University. You could publish the book yourself.
> Prof. Langdon could be Professor at Harvard University, Ruritania, in
> fact he probably is - they'd be quite keen on Symbolism there, you can
> be sure.
>

I'm glad you used "symbolism". I've been wondering all along, judging by
the way it has been used in posts so far, in what way "symbology" might
possibly differ from the usual word.

--
Rob Bannister

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:36:46 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

...


>
> I am genuinely ready for an elegant and scholarly defence against the
> charge. I'm certainly not expecting it and should be gobsmacked if it
> appeared. However, I can honestly say that, if it did, I should change
> my mind.

So let me ask you once again: what _have_ you read? If you want elegant,
I repeat my suggestion of Barthes' "The World of Wrestling," to be
found in _Mythologies_.


>
> Until then, though, I certainly shan't waste more of my time reading
> horseshit. If a proponent of the subject can't be bothered, or is quite
> unable, to provide an argument for it having any value then I think we
> can take that as a pretty convincing demonstration that it is best left
> alone!

You go.

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:38:18 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:
...>


>> Some of us are interested in the way meaning is made. You're not,
>> fine. But why crap on people who are?
>
> >
> Meaning is made? Eh? You're quite sure about that, are you? There is
> quite a strong argument for a platonic view in which meaning is discovered.

No, there isn't. There's a Platonic theory about truth being
"discovered." It's called _anamnesis_. I very much doubt you'd like it
if you had the first clue as to what it meant.

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:39:16 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> smw wrote:
\...


>>> God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.) Yes. Back then, we used to
>>> read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked to
>>> discover that we didn't understand them.
>>
>>
>> Neither a man nor young
>
> >
> Ah, an 'old boy' then.

How fascinating a demonstrating of reading skills. YOu've heard of females?

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:41:37 PM5/31/06
to

> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

>>>>>>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics'

smw:


>>>>>And semiotics is "bullshit" because?
>

zeleny:


>
>>>Your original imputation of bullshit was spot on.


Brooks:

>>Thank you. I believed that I was correct.
>

Zeleny:
> You are welcome.

(and also: "Just as the composition and delivery of persuasive discourse

is the production of flattery, so its interpretation is the consumption

of flattery.")


smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:43:31 PM5/31/06
to

Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:

> Wordsmith wrote:
...


>> It's not just medical. It encompasses *all* signs. I've read a few
>> books about it.
>>
> For somebody interested in the subject, this is something of a howler.
>
> The OED, an authority on the signifiers of signs, particular ones,
> anyway, gives two meanings for semiotics, one is the real medical
> science that I mention - they denote this definition by the numeral '1'.
> The other meaning, the study of all signs, they show has a different
> meaning, that of semiotics, which they signify by the numeral '2'.
>
> You're confusing two quite different things that have the same sign -
> shame on you!

So, what's the etymology of semiotics, master reader?

smw

unread,
May 31, 2006, 9:44:27 PM5/31/06
to

Robert Bannister wrote:

Symbology would be the right one, as -logy ususally connotes "logos
concerning." "Symbolism" is not a logos but a practice.
>

don groves

unread,
May 31, 2006, 11:25:31 PM5/31/06
to
Mike Lyle wrote:

> smw wrote:
>
>>Mike Lyle wrote:
>>
>>
>>>smw wrote:
>>>[...]
>>>
>>>
>>>>I don't think it even needs paragraphs. At its most basic, semiotics is
>>>>the exploration of second-order signification (i.e. signs used to
>>>>signify other signs). In _Myth Today_, Barthes uses the example of a
>>>>propaganda poster showing a black soldier in uniform saluting the French
>>>>flag.
>>>>
>>>>Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't see how
>>>>the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of the work
>>>>that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously performed
>>>>under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why I
>>>>brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous examples).
>>>>But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under it, as
>>>>would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its best,
>>>>semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming a large
>>>>store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.
>>>
>>>
>>>Back in the bad old days when we were ignorant savages, we used to call
>>>that "reading".
>>
>>You used to call what "reading"? Semiotics? Blumenberg? Presuming?
>>Transdisciplinary knowledge?
>
>

> God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.) Yes. Back then, we used to
> read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked to
> discover that we didn't understand them.
>

Reminds me of a past trip to the library looking for works
of a certain author. I found two books of his works and 27
books about his works.

Alan Watts used to say that modern libraries are like giant
chunks of yeast, feeding on themselves until all that's left
are books about books which are also books about books.
--
dg

"The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been
forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real,
pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad." -- James Madison

Richard Harter

unread,
May 31, 2006, 11:56:55 PM5/31/06
to

Wouldn't it be an ideology or belief system?

Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
It is not wise to examine apparent coincidences too closely.
Sometimes they are not coincidences at all.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:18:19 AM6/1/06
to
Paul Ilechko wrote:
> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>
>>> Any culture's semiotic system is intelligible to its members, even if
>>> they can't articulate its construction.
>>
>> >
>> Really? That seems a highly optimistic view. I could offer several
>> thousand counter examples, but the fact that anybody fails an exam
>> ever is sufficient.
>
> What part of "can't articulate" did you not understand ?
>
Are you seriously trying to suggest that those that fail exams (to
mention just the one counter example) know the answers but are too thick
to articulate them? Come off it! The system is not intelligible to its
members - which was my point.

>
>
>>> Some of us are interested in the way meaning is made. You're not,
>>> fine. But why crap on people who are?
>>
>> >
>> Meaning is made? Eh? You're quite sure about that, are you? There is
>> quite a strong argument for a platonic view in which meaning is
>> discovered.
>
> Not that you would want to give any arguments, would you? After all,
> lets not get too *academic* about it ....
>
Certainly not - not on usenet anyway. The assertion wasn't mine though,
so I only had to raise doubt in the mind of the asserter.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:21:14 AM6/1/06
to
Mac the Nice wrote:
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> news:e5kpp2$be8$1...@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net...
>> Not at all. They simply pointed out that writers, odd as you might think
>> this to be, generally don't write in order not to communicate.
>
> Writers write in order to communicate.
> James Joyce in *Finnegans Wake* for the 99.9% of readers does not
> communicate.
> Therefore, James Joyce is only .1% of a writer.
>
>> It is non-writers that go out of their way to be obscure enough to conceal
>> their ignorance.
>
> All people who write are not "writers".
> There is therefore that class of writers who are non-writers.
> All non-writers are ignorant as may be known by the obscurity of what they
> write.
> James Joyce is obscure.
> Therefore, James Joyce is ignorant,
> And not even the .1% of a writer.
>
'Generally'. Also Joyce wasn't a million miles away from being
pretentious, now, was he - some people find 'Portrait of an Artist as a
Young Man' nauseous.

>
>> Consequently, if you are reading the work of writers, you don't need to
>> stalk their meaning as you might a grease covered cat burglar - you can
>> take them at their word, you can trust most of their references and, if
>> you've read a bit of other work in the period, you can interpret the
>> symbols they use.
>
> Symbols are constructed as being relevant only to the period in which they
> are employed.
> All literary allusion to Classical figures is relevant to nothing.
>
By whose fiat?

>
>> It's called literary appreciation. It still exists, despite the mountains
>> of horseshit built up to try to stifle it.
>
> That statement being the veritable Mount Everest of it all.
>
A weighty statement, perhaps, thank you.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:22:27 AM6/1/06
to
Mike Lyle wrote:
> Paul Ilechko wrote:
>> Mike Lyle wrote:
>>
>>> God, you're young, aren't you? (Lucky man.)
>> When did Silke get to be a man, i wonder ?
>>
>> > Yes. Back then, we used to
>> > read books about life more often than books about books: I'm shocked
>> > to discover that we didn't understand them.
>> >
>>
>> Feeble attempts at being patronizing were also popular in "your day",
>> grandad ?
>
> You bet they were, son! Robust ones, too. Could do it all night, but of
> course it came easier when I was young: it always does, but you don't
> realise at the time. Now, do tell us how symbolism, imagery, shades and
> layers of meaning, and y'know, kinda like allegory and allusion and
> self-contradiction and stuff, have changed in the last few decades.
> There's lots of fun at Finnegan's wake. Have creeps eventually
> discovered an eighth type of ambiguity? (No, don't answer that.)
>
Yes, and there's more than fun as well - but it wasn't designed to
communicate to hoi polloi.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:23:49 AM6/1/06
to
You're only supposed to dissect it after the film is over.


Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:24:43 AM6/1/06
to
I am merciful, like the other chap. But I had pointed it out in my first
posting.

Peter H.M. Brooks

unread,
Jun 1, 2006, 12:26:34 AM6/1/06
to
LOL! It doesn't take long for the bitchiness to surface, does it, dear.

You're very confident, then, that meaning is made? No real world for you
then.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:26:53 AM6/1/06
to
I've even heard them.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:27:25 AM6/1/06
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Look it up in the OED.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:29:47 AM6/1/06
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Richard Harter wrote:
> On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:44:27 GMT, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Robert Bannister wrote:
>>
>>> Peter H.M. Brooks wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> It needn't be the University. You could publish the book yourself.
>>>> Prof. Langdon could be Professor at Harvard University, Ruritania, in
>>>> fact he probably is - they'd be quite keen on Symbolism there, you can
>>>> be sure.
>>>>
>>> I'm glad you used "symbolism". I've been wondering all along, judging by
>>> the way it has been used in posts so far, in what way "symbology" might
>>> possibly differ from the usual word.
>> Symbology would be the right one, as -logy ususally connotes "logos
>> concerning." "Symbolism" is not a logos but a practice.
>
> Wouldn't it be an ideology or belief system?
>
In the beginning, was the word.

Moira de Swardt

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:47:26 AM6/1/06
to

"Mike Lyle" <mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
> smw wrote:

> > Since such a huge chunk of meaning is produced that way, I don't
see how
> > the humanities, especially, could proceed without it. Much of
the work
> > that can now be subsumed under "Semiotics" was previously
performed
> > under the name of other schools of interpretation (which is why
I
> > brought up Schoene, whose book is one of the most marvelous
examples).
> > But anything on symbols, emblems, bestiaries would fall under
it, as
> > would, as an other example, Blumenberg's Metaphorology. At its
best,
> > semiotics is scholarly in the most traditional sense, presuming
a large
> > store of trans-disciplinary and trans-historical knowledge.

> Back in the bad old days when we were ignorant savages, we used to
call
> that "reading".

It was what my father referred to at being "literate". The ability
to read something and understand all that it encompassed, or at the
very least recognise that there was something that should be
explored. My sister and I were raised on myths and legends as well
as fairy stories, and this foresight really helped with English
literature (and the odd Latin translation).

--
Moira de Swardt posting from Johannesburg, South Africa
Remove the dot in my address to find me at home.


Moira de Swardt

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:49:44 AM6/1/06
to

"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za>
> smw wrote:

> > How fascinating a demonstrating of reading skills. YOu've heard
of females?

> I've even heard them.

Now, now, Peter. That's not nice. :-)

Moira de Swardt

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Jun 1, 2006, 12:56:43 AM6/1/06
to

"Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za> wrote in message
> Gillian B wrote:

> > That was fun, almost like watching a Bruce Lee movie- the
disguised female
> > ninja, the attackers hidden on the rooftops etc.
> > Lets do it again!

> You're only supposed to dissect it after the film is over.

There are some that are so boring that one saves time and dissects
while watching.

Wordsmith

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:01:31 AM6/1/06
to

My ignorance is attributable to my lack of an OED. My American
dictionary neglects to
mention it. *shrug*

W

Wordsmith

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:03:40 AM6/1/06
to

He's prolly OEDless...like me!

W

Wordsmith

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:05:16 AM6/1/06
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Richard Maurer wrote:
> It is apt that Wordsmith wrote:
> The word is not the thing.
>
>
> Word play is the thing wherein we'll catch
> the cognoscenti of word bling.

Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare!

W

> -- ---------------------------------------------
> Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
> Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:32:17 AM6/1/06
to

Moira de Swardt wrote:
> "
>
> It was what my father referred to at being "literate". The ability
> to read something and understand all that it encompassed, or at the
> very least recognise that there was something that should be
> explored. My sister and I were raised on myths and legends as well
> as fairy stories, and this foresight really helped with English
> literature (and the odd Latin translation).
>
Absolutely! Part of reading a lot is the delight in seeing how
different periods have different preoccupations, which become familiar
as you read more. Some would try to claim that Jane Austin's world is a
closed book to us - which is complete nonsense, particularly as Jane,
herself, is such an astute and acute observer, who makes the everyday,
for her, come alive.

Of course, Tristam Shandy is a timeless work that would be debased if
it were to be read as only a product of its time and its
preoccupations. The same might be said for Joyce. There's a good film
version of Ulysses, set in the sixties, giving, again, the lie to
things only making sense in their time.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:34:04 AM6/1/06
to

Moira de Swardt wrote:
> "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za>
> > smw wrote:
>
> > > How fascinating a demonstrating of reading skills. YOu've heard
> of females?
>
> > I've even heard them.
>
> Now, now, Peter. That's not nice. :-)
>
That's one reading - it was supposed to be ambiguous...

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:35:40 AM6/1/06
to
The OED, CD version, has kept the same price for many years and is
consequently a bargain. I'd recommend it as a purchase that can give
great delight.

Steve Hayes

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:41:42 AM6/1/06
to
On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:44:27 GMT, smw <sm...@ameritech.net> wrote:

But my Funk and Wagnalls (1927) defined "symbology" as the practice of using
symbols, and the study of them was called "symbolics". Of course in 70 years
the language may have changed, and it may be a difference between American and
British English that has narrowed in that time. I heard a bloke on Sky TV
pronouncing "harassed" in the American manner, with the stress on the second
syllable, though he spoke with an Estuary accent.


--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://www.geocities.com/hayesstw/stevesig.htm
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 1:54:22 AM6/1/06
to

Wordsmith wrote:
>
> > >
> > > So, what's the etymology of semiotics, master reader?
> > >
> > Look it up in the OED.
>
> He's prolly OEDless...like me!
>
The greek doesn't come through properly, but this isn't the place to
post binary documents, so, ex-OED:
"
semiotics

(si;mI"QtIks, sEmI-) Also semeiotics (si;maI-). [ad. Gr.
rgleixsij-, ellipt. use (sc. sŒvmg) of the fem. of rgleixsij¾|
semiotic. See -ic 2.]

1. The branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of
symptoms.

1670 H. Stubbe Plus Ultra 75 Semeiotics, method of curing, and
tried+medicines. 1793 Holcroft tr. Lavater's Physiog. iii. 27, I shall
now proceed to consider Medicinal Semeiotics, or the signs of Health
and Sickness. 1867 Corfe in Med. Times & Gaz. 7 Sept. 252/1 Semeiotics
may be construed as the doctrinal language of pathology. 1873 Wagner
tr. Teuffel's Hist. Rom. Lit. II. 26 The second [treats] of semiotics
and general pathology and therapy.

2. The science of communication studied through the interpretation
of signs and symbols as they operate in various fields, esp. language
(see semiotic n. for parallel form). Cf. semiology.

1880 G. Mallery Introd. Study Sign Lang. among N. Amer. Indians 4
Our native semiotics will surely help the archæologist in his study of
native picture-writing. 1911 A. M. Ludovici tr. F. Nietzsche's
Antichrist in Twilight of Idols xxxii. 169 One should guard against
seeing anything more than a language of signs, semeiotics, an
opportunity for parables in all this. 1955 A. Huxley Genius & Goddess
42 He kissed her-kissed her with an intensity of passion+for which
the semiotics and the absent-mindedness had left her entirely
unprepared. 1964 T. Sebeok et al. Approaches to Semiotics 5 Margaret
Mead proposed semiotics+as a term which might aptly cover 'patterned
communication in all modalities'. 1973 D. Osmond-Smith tr.
Bettelini's Lang. & Technique of Film i. 2 Some talk of a universal
semiotics, capable of including within itself all aspects of the film
as sign-system. 1980 Semiotica XXIX. 185 (heading) A firework for the
semiotics of visible human action.
"
and
"
semiotic, a. (and n.)

(si;mI"QtIk, sEmI-) Also 7 semioticke, semeiotic (si;maI-). [a. Gr.
rgleixsij¾| significant; also, concerned with the interpretation of
symptoms (chiefly fem. ellipt.: see semiotics), f. rgleioÕm to
interpret as a sign, f. rgle´om sign.]

A. adj.

1. Relating to symptoms.

1625 Hart Anat. Ur. i. i. 13 The chiefe+part of Physicke
diagnosticke or semioticke, which teacheth vs to know the nature,
causes, and substance of the disease by the signes and grounds of the
same. 1876 Dunglison Med. Lex., Semiotic, symptomatic. 1898 Syd. Soc.
Lex., Semeiotic.

†2. Symbolic, serving to convey meaning. Obs.

1797 Monthly Mag. III. 269/1 That the Egyptians were not acquainted
with the alphabet, till the time of Psammeticus, and that commerce
alone gave birth to semeiotic signs.

3. Of or pertaining to semiotics or the use of signs. Cf. semiotics
2.

1923 H. G. Baynes tr. Jung's Psychol. Types i. 82, I say
'semiotic' in contradistinction to 'symbolic'. What Freud terms
symbols are no more than signs for elementary instinctive processes.
1957 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxviii. 4 It is an utterance that
'craves' a verbal or other semiotic (e.g., a nod) response. 1973
Akhmanova & Mar<ccirc>enko Meaning Equivalence & Linguistics Expression
7 The Morse code is a semiotic system par excellence, for in it every
unit of content and every unit of expression are in regular one-to-one
correspondence.+ The same applies+to all the other semiotic systems
such as, for instance, notation in music, or chemical formulae, or
mathematical signs. 1974 S. Morawski Inquiries into Fundament. of
Aesthetics viii. 302 The fourth approach+considers the artistic
communication itself and its semiotic connections. 1978 J. Updike Coup
(1979) vii. 257 No doubt this semeiotic treasure-lode [sc. a wallet]
enriches the arcana of some light-fingered ex-nomad.

B. absol. as n. = semiotics 2.

[1690 Locke Hum. Und. iv. xx. 361 The third Branch may be called
oglixsij-, or the Doctrine of Signs, the most usual whereof being
words, it is aptly enough termed also kocij-, Logick.] c1897 C. S.
Peirce Coll. Papers (1932) II. ii. ii. 134 Logic, in its general sense,
is+only another name for semiotic (ogleixsij-), the quasi-necessary,
or formal, doctrine of signs. 1937 C. Morris Logical Positivism,
Pragmatism, & Sci. Empiricism 4 Semiotic being the general science
which includes all of these [dimensions] and their interrelations.
1953 F. J. Whitfield tr. Hjelmslev's Prolegomena to Theory of Lang. 76
The so-called metalanguage (or, we should say, metasemiotic), by which
is meant a semiotic that treats of a semiotic. 1973 R. Jakobson Sci.
of Lang. ii. 32 The subject matter of semiotic is the communication of
any messages whatever, whereas the field of linguistics is confined to
the communication of verbal messages.

Hence semio"tician.

1946 C. Morris Signs, Lang., & Behavior i. i. 4 At some point the
semiotician must say: 'Henceforth we will recognize that anything
which fulfills certain conditions is a sign.' 1946 Mind LV. 46 Other
groups of workers in the same field, as, for example+the Semioticians
(e.g. Carnap, Morris). 1960 H. Read Form of Things Unknown i. ii. 34
In general, semioticians have confined themselves to the study of the
various types of discourse which make use of language. 1976 Visible
Language X. 68 It is possible, in the case of some
'auto-illustrations', to follow those semioticians who prefer to
view iconic motivation as a special case of metonymic pars pro toto.

APPENDED FROM ADDITIONS 1993

semiotic, a. (and n.) Add: semi"oticist n.

1973 D. Osmond-Smith tr. Bettetini's Lang. & Technique of Film i. 9
The difficulty that has most obstructed the semioticist's work would
seem to have been that of searching out and formulating a metalanguage.
1984 Amer. N. & Q. Sept./Oct. 22/1 How many allusions of this kind has
this Joyce scholar and semioticist hidden openly in his narrative?

"

Steve Hayes

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Jun 1, 2006, 2:06:44 AM6/1/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 20:52:29 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, 31 May 2006 13:26:29 +0100, Adam Funk <a24...@yahoo.com> wrote:


>>
>>>On 2006-05-31, Steve Hayes <haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>The closest is the bullshit subject of 'semiotics' (also semiology) -
>>>>>Umberto Eco is paid to be semiotician. It is obviously useful for
>>>>>writing novels like 'The Name of the Rose'.
>>>>

>>>> Eco's "Foucault's pendulum" seems to predict this situation rather well.
>>>
>>>And I recently read "The Island of the Day Before", which includes the
>>>following amusing passage:
>>>
>>>--> For the captain it was obvious that the books, having
>>>--> belonged to a plague victim, were agents of infection. The
>>>--> plague is transmitted, as everyone knows, through venenific
>>>--> unguents, and he had read of people who died by wetting a
>>>--> finger with saliva as they leafed through works whose pages
>>>--> had in fact been smeared with a poison.
>>>
>>>Far out -- I wonder where the captain read that?
>>
>> In "Name of the rose", of course.
>
>It was meant as a rhetorical question.

But not everyone has read it.

(alt.religion.kibology removed from newsgroups list)

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 2:07:52 AM6/1/06
to
Also:

"
symbology

(sIm"bQl@dZI) [ad. mod.L. symbologia, shortened form for
*symbolologia, f. Gr. rÊlbokom symbol n.1: see -logy.]

The science or study of symbols; loosely, the use of symbols, or
symbols collectively; symbolism.

1840 De Quincey Essenes Wks. 1862 IX. 271 note, In the symbology of
the Jewish ritual. 1853 J. Mills (title) Sacred Symbology: or, An
Inquiry into the Principles of Interpretation of the Prophetic Symbols.
1883 Sinnett Esoteric Buddhism Pref. (1884) p. xv, Ideas+in more or
less embarrassing disguise of mystic symbology. 1896 E. P. Evans Anim.
Symbolism v. 246 Whimseys of Ecclesiology and Symbology.

So symbo"logical a., pertaining to symbology; sym"bologist, one
versed in symbology (rare).

1864 Webster, Symbological. Ibid., Symbologist. 1924 Glasgow
Herald 4 Apr. 13 Professor Stern returns to the attack upon this
theory-mongering, always recalling the symbologists and
complex-jargonists to a consideration of practical realities as a test
of their deductions. 1976 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 15 Apr. 29/2 He considered
the Papal Bull of 1950 declaring the Assumption of the Virgin an
article of faith to be the most important symbological event since the
Reformation.
"

Steve Hayes

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Jun 1, 2006, 2:12:34 AM6/1/06
to
On Wed, 31 May 2006 21:17:26 +0200, "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za>
wrote:

>Until then, though, I certainly shan't waste more of my time reading
>horseshit. If a proponent of the subject can't be bothered, or is quite
>unable, to provide an argument for it having any value then I think we
>can take that as a pretty convincing demonstration that it is best left
>alone!

I once took a (compulsory) first-year course in a subject where the entire
course was devoted to the defence of the subject as a respectable academic
discipline. I was bored silly, and was certainly put off going on to second
year.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Silke has no need to defend her
discipline. But she can use it to demonstrate its results. If that doesn't
convince you of its value, so be it.

Peter H.M. Brooks

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Jun 1, 2006, 2:17:17 AM6/1/06
to

Steve Hayes wrote:
> On Wed, 31 May 2006 21:17:26 +0200, "Peter H.M. Brooks" <pe...@new.co.za>
> wrote:
>
> >Until then, though, I certainly shan't waste more of my time reading
> >horseshit. If a proponent of the subject can't be bothered, or is quite
> >unable, to provide an argument for it having any value then I think we
> >can take that as a pretty convincing demonstration that it is best left
> >alone!
>
> I once took a (compulsory) first-year course in a subject where the entire
> course was devoted to the defence of the subject as a respectable academic
> discipline. I was bored silly, and was certainly put off going on to second
> year.
>
It sounds quite dreadful. I suppose, though, that a course in Advocacy
could be taught in exactly that way with interesting results. It'd be
perverse, but it might be a sound pedagogical device.

>
> The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Silke has no need to defend her
> discipline. But she can use it to demonstrate its results. If that doesn't
> convince you of its value, so be it.
>
Quite.

jimc...@pacbell.net

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Jun 1, 2006, 2:41:56 AM6/1/06
to
Steve Hayes wrote:

[On the melding of British and American speech]

> I heard a bloke on Sky TV
> pronouncing "harassed" in the American manner, with the stress on the second
> syllable, though he spoke with an Estuary accent.

The classic joke about that -- it seemed very funny when I was 10 --
has
the racetrack announcement, "The filly Harrass will not be running
this afternoon. Scratch Harass off your list!"

Americans commonly say "loo" now, a word that was nearly unknown
30 years ago, and "bloke" has made serious inroads. (Britons
pretty nearly say "guy" as much as they say "bloke" now, or so
it seems to me.) The word "Brit" allegedly first used in Northern
Ireland during the Troubles, or maybe earlier in the
south, has almost completely replaced "Briton".

I have heard Brits at home claim that Americans don't call
themselves Yanks. They most certainly do, nor is it
the least bit insulting to Yanks.

"Genu-wine", common in Ireland, is unacceptable in the U.S.
except as slang. Has the same status as "ain't." And it
is still highly unacceptable for a British hotel clerk to ask an
American he doesn't know very well if she'd like to
be knocked up in the morning.


ObBook - Paul Fussell _Class_

No, that's too easy.

Okay, ObBook - Umberto Eco, _Theory of Semiotics_

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