Charles Baldwin on Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:31:27 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Codework / Eco / Aquinas (fwd) |
"The inarticulate cry which seemed to be the voice of light." * Hermes Trismegistus I was thinking about codework presenting "its object and the inscription of its object, both taken in the broadest sense," as Alan wrote recently, and about the discussion of Eco. A while back I was working out the relation of Eco's dissertation * published in book form in 1956, later in English as _The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas_ - to his semiotics. Note that first book appeared before Eco's turn to semiotics (remember, he first adapts a kind of structuralist version of information theory in _The Open Work_ [1962?] and then turns to semiotics a few years later). The following is a perhaps too long meditation on this connection, with the idea that it might contribute to the discussion of Eco. What interested me at the time was the importance of the Thomist notions of manifestation, claritas, participation, proportion, and so on, for semiotics and (differently) for media theory (where, separately from Eco, McLuhan was also reading Aquinas, and claimed his goal was to create a Thomist theory of media). The idea, for me, was that the Thomist model provided the underlying dynamics for Eco and McLuhan, all hinged around the metaphorics of light * i.e. the sense certainty and immediacy (speed) of light was the guarantee that sign and material were the same. (This works out differently for McLuhan vs. Eco: "light is a medium without a message," so the inaccessibility of light [for McLuhan] is what underwrite the more kinetic flip-flop theory of "the medium is the message.") The attraction of Aquinas was precisely the answer to how formal systems participate with the world, an answer that deals with both the grounds and the exteriority of sign systems. That is: codework was already the issue, though under the guise of aesthetics rather than code * aesthetics in the older sense of sensation / aisthesis and not aesthetics in the sense of codified responses or artistic forms * or rather, in the sense of the ground of these responses/forms. (I've discussed this elsewhere in relation to "code aesthetics.") This is precisely what interested me in my last post: attempting to resituate the problem of semiotics in a general economy. Its also why the question is semiotics' "reductiveness" is both entirely accurate and entirely part of the puzzle rather than a reason to turn away from semiotics. Here I'm going quickly and trying to bring up stuff from years back, but: remember, the underlying concept is analogy, particularly proportional analogy as analogy of being. (Here there's another connection to be pursued in the trigger for Heidegger's Sein und Zeit in Brentano's work on the analogy .) The analogy of being means a "resonance" between proportionally arranged entities. "Proportionalitas posits a similarity of relations between any terms whatever" (Ricoeur). Entities in analogy participate, share being (participare = partem capere). Aesthetic forms (or media) are the "extension" (participation) of our senses. Human senses "delight in things duly proportioned as in something akin to them; for, the sense, too, is a kind of reason as is every cognitive power." So, proportionality of being leading to an aesthetics of delight. The working out of all this is the notion of manifestation, a quasi- mystical translation between proportionalities enabling the whole system. (I think here of the relation between code and AS's notion of "plasma."). There's a whole lattice of connecting references here, a whole history of formal / semiotic systems built on the Thomist notion of participation/manifestation. One example: Panofsky's "symbolic form" originates in his study of this Scholastic notion, in the idea that Gothic cathedrals didn't simply represent thought but manifested thought itself. The organization of the cathedral involved a "clarity" that resonated immediately with viewers/participators. [Eco: "Clarity is the fundamental communicability of form, which is made actual in relation to someone's looking at or seeing of the object." "Claritas" is both reason and the mystical dazzle of saint's bodies, both sign-form and emanation.] From this Panofsky developed the notion of "habitus" as "ways of thinkin! g" or "arts of living." In turn, Bourdieu's entire theory is built on this concept * habitus as "structuring structures" that "make history" -- taking Panofsky but generalizing it from architecture. And so on. (In addition, Panofsky, Eco, McLuhan, etc. all argue that manifestation and clarification are at work in the organization of writing as well * I'll return to this below.) Now, here's the crux of the matter, a crux that enables semiotics but remains a crux and remains the productive site for codework within and across semiotics. Aquinas argued that sacred doctrine "makes use of human reason, not to prove faith but to make clear (manifestare) whatever else is set forth in this doctrine." The articles of faith, and thus the analogy of being, cannot be made immediately evident, "for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end" explains Aquinas. Representations ('similitudines' for Aquinas; signs for Eco) are this manifestation. The organization and reflexivity of signs is due to their proportionality with the world. (I think here of AS's discussion of SR qua Wittgenstein.) The paradox here (Panofsky gets this too, but it's crucial to Eco's semiotics) is the notion that manifestation will clarify faith, clarify the underlying participation in being, but in doing so will *finally* clarify faith (bring it to an end). This impossible need for exemplification leads, in Panofsky's terms, to the "POSTULATE OF CLARIFICATION FOR CLARIFICATION'S SAKE." Leaving Panofsky , I think it's possible to see in Eco precisely this paradox enabling semiotics as an intra-formal economy of proliferating signs. Everything must be clarified / made into as sign, but (also) there always remains some unclarity, guaranteeing a kind of momentum from being to sign. Elaboration, i.e. the structures of signs systems, arises from clarification. Semiotics is clarification * not in any particular sign but in semiotics "itself" as the residue of clarification. So, it seems to me that this is another historical approach to codework. Again, for Eco, Panofsky, McLuhan, Aquinas as well, this whole complex is transferred from the visual arts to the written arts * not that it doesn't remain in the visual arts, but writing is increasingly where this question is most intensely elaborated, where the impossible paradox (above) is exemplified. To what degree is Eco's semiotics a concealed continuation of a Thomist aesthetics? Read across the trajectory of Eco's work, from the earliest text through the _Theory of Semiotics_: every sign is a ghost emanation of being. Beyond this, there's another related but different history explaining how the whole thing is staged rhetorically, dissolving "being" into "performance," but that's probably enough for now. Thanks for your patience. Of course, as far as McLuhan goes, Ezra Pound wrote, following one of Marshall's visits to St. Catherine's, "McL procedure is arcyFarcy / whether poisoned by Thos d/Aquin or some other." Sandy Baldwin West Virginia University Assistant Professor of English 359 Stansbury Hall 304-293-3107x452 Coordinator of the Center for Literary Computing 203 Armstrong Hall 304-293-3871 charles.baldwin@mail.wvu.edu www.clc.wvu.edu www.as.wvu.edu/~sbaldwin -------------------------- "If it's working, it's already obsolete." - Mountbatten # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net