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Single Idea 21931

[filed under theme 19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 9. Ambiguity ]

Full Idea

The intention to oppose polysemia with dissemination does not aim to affirm that everything we say is ambiguous, but that polysemia is irreducible in the sense that each and every 'meaning' is itself subject to more than one understanding.

Clarification

'polysemia' is having many meanings

Gist of Idea

'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings

Source

report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 5

Book Ref

Glendinning,Simon: 'Derrida: a Very Short Intro' [OUP 2011], p.56

A Reaction

The key point, I think, is that ambiguity and polysemia are not failures of language (which is the way most logicians see it), but part of the essential and irreducible nature of language. Nietzsche started this line of thought.

Related Ideas

Idea 21929 Derrida focuses on ambiguity, but talks of 'dissemination', not traditional multiple meanings [Derrida]

Idea 7144 Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist [Nietzsche]

The 28 ideas from 'works'

21887 Derrida focuses on other philosophers, rather than on science [Derrida]
21888 Philosophy is just a linguistic display [Derrida]
21896 Philosophy aims to build foundations for thought [Derrida, by May]
21893 Philosophy is necessarily metaphorical, and its writing is aesthetic [Derrida]
21883 Sincerity can't be verified, so fiction infuses speech, and hence reality also [Derrida]
21882 Sentences are contradictory, as they have opposite meanings in some contexts [Derrida]
21881 We aim to explore the limits of expression (as in Mallarmé's poetry) [Derrida]
21892 Interpretations can be interpreted, so there is no original 'meaning' available [Derrida]
20925 Hermeneutics blunts truth, by conforming it to the interpreter [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
20934 Hermeneutics is hostile, trying to overcome the other person's difference [Derrida, by Zimmermann,J]
21895 Structuralism destroys awareness of dynamic meaning [Derrida]
21934 The idea of being as persistent presence, and meaning as conscious intelligibility, are self-destructive [Derrida, by Glendinning]
4756 Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel]
21877 True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida]
21878 Names have a subjective aspect, especially the role of our own name [Derrida]
21889 'I' is the perfect name, because it denotes without description [Derrida]
21879 Even Kripke can't explain names; the word is the thing, and the thing is the word [Derrida]
21891 The good is implicitly violent (against evil), so there is no pure good [Derrida]
21890 Heidegger showed that passing time is the key to consciousness [Derrida]
21880 'Tacit theory' controls our thinking (which is why Freud is important) [Derrida]
21894 Madness and instability ('the demonic hyperbole') lurks in all language [Derrida]
21886 Meanings depend on differences and contrasts [Derrida]
21930 For Aristotle all proper nouns must have a single sense, which is the purpose of language [Derrida]
21884 Capacity for repetitions is the hallmark of language [Derrida]
21935 The sign is only conceivable as a movement between elusive presences [Derrida]
21933 Writing functions even if the sender or the receiver are absent [Derrida, by Glendinning]
21885 Words exist in 'spacing', so meanings are never synchronic except in writing [Derrida]
21931 'Dissemination' is opposed to polysemia, since that is irreducible, because of multiple understandings [Derrida, by Glendinning]