Speech and Phenomena

Philosophy 157

G. J. Mattey

©2002

Indication and Expression

• Husserl distinguished two kinds of signs• Indicative signs indicate something to a thinking

being• The reality of a state of affairs of which one has

knowledge indicates the reality of another state of affairs

• Expressions are meaningful signs• In communication, expressions are indications of

meaning given to the sign by the communicator

Expressions in Solitary Life

• When used in uncommunicated mental life, expressions are not indicative, though still meaningful

• They are not indicative for two reasons• We do not effectively communicate, but only

represent a communication • We already have knowledge of their meaning and

so cannot inform ourselves of an unknown state of affairs through a mental sign

Questions About Meaning

• For Husserl, the pure function of meaning is not to indicate

• Where does this leave the status of representation in language?

• It might mean a kind of putting-forward (Vorstellung) or a re-presentation

Putting-Forward

• The first reason for non-indicative expression was that we cannot put a meaning forward to ourselves, but only represent such a putting-forward

• So there is an essential difference between effective communication and an imaginary “represented” communication

• The “representation” would have to be a fiction• But we cannot separate “real” from “fictitious”

communication

Re-Presentation

• Linguistic signs are signs only through their repetition

• There must be something identical underlying the occurrence of different sign tokens (e.g., phoneme)

• The formal identity is ideal, and thus must be put forward (Vorstellung)

• So all effective discourse requires “unlimited representation,” i.e., putting forward and repetition

Breaking Down Distinctions

• All the modes of representation are present in solitary discourse

• But they are also present in all signs

• There is no real distinction between expression and indicative communication

• Even in solitary discourse we must take the repeated sign as indicative of a meaning

Effacing the Sign

• Historically, philosophers have distinguished between the meaning which is a “simple presence” and the sign which indicates it

• But the two are inextricably intertwined: abolishing one abolishes the other

• Philosophers have tried to make the sign derivative from the presence

• So the sign is effaced just as it is produced• To restore the status of the sign is then to overturn

the traditional concept of the sign

Reversing the Priority

• The differences between represented and representative, sign and signifier, simple presence and reproduction, are not real

• The philosopher’s “presence” depends on the possibility of repetition

• So the sign is not derivative from the presence, but the opposite

Ideality

• Husserl makes ideal the following:• The sensible form of the signifier (word)• The signified (intended sense)• The object (in the case of the exact sciences)• The ideality is just the permanence of the same

and the possibility of its repetition• Absolute ideality is the possibility of indefinite

repetition

Platonism

• Husserl determines being as ideality

• This is an ethico-theoretical valuation in the Platonic way

• Ideality does not exist only in the sense that it is not empirical reality

Presence

• Husserl also determines being as presence

• Being is what is present a priori to intuition

• It is an ideal “ob-ject” (standing before the repetition, “pre-sent”)

• It is also infinitely repeatable only because it appears in the present (to a being with the temporal structure we have)

Mortality

• This presence signifies the certainty that the universal form of all experience (and thus life) has been and always will be present

• But I am only related to this universal form as present to me

• “I am” indicates my mortality• So the Cartesian move from “I am” to “I am a

thinking thing” cannot prove one’s immortality• It conceals the relation between presence and

ideality

Imagination

• Imagination is given a key role by Husserl• It involves a re-presentation that is

neutralizes the “positional” presentation of memory

• So it is not wholly neutral, but always points back to the original existence

• The ideality that neutralization achieves is therefore not a fiction

Self-Presence

• Husserl argued that expression in inner dialogue is not indicative because it does not communicate any new information

• Consciousness is transparently present to itself

• Indicative signs are foreign to this self-presence

• So they are foreign to presence in general

Voice

• In interior discourse, we give “voice” to the intuited presence

• The ideal essence expressed is retained in the voicing

• The phoneme is the most “ideal” sign because one hears one’s self in the voicing

• It shows the ideal presence without leaving the interior arena

• The speaker “hears” himself in voicing

Hearing One’s Self Speak

• Hearing one’s self speak is a unique auto-affection• It signifies something ideal• It does not have to pass through the medium of the

world outside the self• This makes it fit for universality• Its connection with sound allows for the unity of

what is worldly and what is transcendental

The Primacy of Voice

• The universality of voice makes it essential to consciousness

• It promises to allow for complete unity with the thing signified aimed at in intuition

• This unity is broken in cases where one sees one’s self speak or make a gesture

Différance

• Traditionally, philosophers have emphasized identity over difference

• Husserl’s transcendental ego is a unified being• Voicing is required for self-presence• So self-presence depends on difference• Différance is the movement that produces this

difference, and so it produces the subject• It is more basic than the identity of self-presence

Temporality

• What distinguishes voice from other modes of signification is its pure temporality

• Temporality itself is a product of auto-affection, a “spontaneous generation”

• In generating new moments of time within a “living present,” a trace of the old moments must be retained

Voice and Temporalization

• Temporalization constantly goes beyond the present

• So pure subjectivity in the sense of remaining within the present is impossible

• Hearing one’s self speak is transcendent in this way

• As such, it is always indicative• Meaning is not added to voice from the outside,

unless it is deficient