On Sat, 11 Feb 1995, Stephen Perrella wrote:
> But i still haven't stated why it is at all important. And i won't here
> but i will point out that you are already sounding decon in noticing that
> no matter how much you try to be precise there is always some excessive
> meaning to your intentful writing or designing. THAT is what Derrida
> tried to argue. So you are right, langauge works harder than thinking.!
> Meaning is always in excess of intent (the old stuff about undecidability)
> because, as Jacques pointed out, the primary condition for meaning is
> difference, not unity. Difference preceeds and will always be more
Isn't there a simpler explanation for the phenomenon 'no matter how much
you try to be precise there is always some excessive meaning to your
intentful writing or designing' than the one offered by decon in its
painfully obscure cant?
Something more along the lines of Occams' razor? To wit:
It is very difficult to translate the thoughts in our heads onto paper. A
good explanation of why it is so hard to pin down meaning could simply be
that writing is not easy.
Compound that with the absence of clarity in the thinking of many people
and you have a real pickle.
Why get more complicated than
---writing is difficult, and,
---many people don't think clearly to begin with?
David Sucher
> But i still haven't stated why it is at all important. And i won't here
> but i will point out that you are already sounding decon in noticing that
> no matter how much you try to be precise there is always some excessive
> meaning to your intentful writing or designing. THAT is what Derrida
> tried to argue. So you are right, langauge works harder than thinking.!
> Meaning is always in excess of intent (the old stuff about undecidability)
> because, as Jacques pointed out, the primary condition for meaning is
> difference, not unity. Difference preceeds and will always be more
Isn't there a simpler explanation for the phenomenon 'no matter how much
you try to be precise there is always some excessive meaning to your
intentful writing or designing' than the one offered by decon in its
painfully obscure cant?
Something more along the lines of Occams' razor? To wit:
It is very difficult to translate the thoughts in our heads onto paper. A
good explanation of why it is so hard to pin down meaning could simply be
that writing is not easy.
Compound that with the absence of clarity in the thinking of many people
and you have a real pickle.
Why get more complicated than
---writing is difficult, and,
---many people don't think clearly to begin with?
David Sucher