Hume and Derrida on Language and Meaning

Hume Studies 12 (2):99-121 (1986)
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Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:99 HUME AND DERRIDA ON LANGUAGE AND MEANING "...Language itself is menaced in its very life, helpless, adrift in the threat of limitlessness, brought back to its own finitude at the very moment when its limits seem to disappear, when it ceases to be self-assured, contained, and guaranteed by the infinite signified which seemed to exceed it." Is this true? What does it mean? Derrida is making a contrast between two views of language. On the view that Derrida believes correct, the linguistic sign, whether spoken or written, acquires its meaning, its significance, from conventions. On this view, meaning is a matter of nomos or institution rather than physis or nature. Since meaning is a matter of convention rather than nature, the sign on this view is arbitrary. And in this respect, there is no distinction between the linguistic or phonic sign and the written or graphic sign. The other view of language denies that all significance is a matter of nomos. There are, rather, at least some signs the signification of which is natural. This view of language is one that Derrida, quite correctly, locates in Plato. It is there already, perhaps especially, in the Meno. Socrates distinguishes knowledge from true opinions :...true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man's mind, so that they are not worth much until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why. And that, Meno my friend, is recollection, as we previously agreed. After they are tied down, in the first place they become 100 knowledge, and then they remainin place. That is why knowledgeis prized higher than correct opinionin being tied down. Knowledge is thus certain, or incorrigible. There is no knowledge that lacks a guarantee of its truth. This knowledge is obtained through a form of knowing that Socrates argues is akin to "recollection." The details of what recollection is need not detain us; what is important is what recollection is a knowledge of. There are in fact two cases with which the Meno deals. The first is the case of geometrical 4 propositions. In the course of Socrates' interrogation, Meno' s slave boy discovers that a certain geometrical proposition is true. Recollection is, thus, in the first place a discovery of facts that makes propositions true. That a proposition is true is, in general, not a matter of convention: truth depends upon the facts that the proposition is about, and whether those facts do or do not obtain will in general not be dependent upon any social institutions or conventions. On the other hand, it is compatible with this to hold that what a proposition means is a matter of convention. That 'Hume ist tot' means in German that Hume is dead is a matter of convention, just as it is a matter of convention that 'Hume is not dead' means in English that Hume is not dead; but it is not a matter of convention, but of non-linguistic fact, that the former is true and the latter false. Importantly, Socrates first obtains from Meno an affirmative answer to the question "Does he speak Greek?" before he begins his examination of the slave boy. The boy can thus be taken to understand the conventions that determine the meaning of the proposition the truth of 101 which he discovers. Grasping meaning may in this way be a matter of grasping conventions; but to grasp the truth is not a matter of convention. However, this is not Plato's view, as is made clear by the second example of the sort of thing of which recollection is supposed to yield knowledge. What Socrates seeks is a definition of 'virtue;' he even gives Meno a brief course on how to give good definitions. And this search is, for Socrates, analogous to the search for the truth of the slave boy's geometrical proposition. As the slave boy searches for the truth with respect to a geometrical proposition, so Socrates searches for the truth with respect to the definition of 'virtue.' In each case the...

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