Language as Model for Technics: Literature Between Translation and Transposition
dennisbouvard.substack.com
A while back I suggested replacing the word “sign” with the word “sample.” I take the critique of metaphysics seriously, since I consider it a starting and differentiating point of the originary hypothesis, and “sign,” with its philosophical and linguistic roots in the signifier/signified distinction, carries a lot of metaphysical residue. If a sign is constitutive of a system in its reciprocal references to all other signs in a way that is constantly changing and non-totalizable, then signs can only be lined up with signifieds and referents on scenic terms, within events. “Samples” are, intrinsically, only identifiable upon a scene of inquiry—what they are samples of always issues in some ostensive sign. There are lots of things in the world that can be treated as samples that we wouldn’t ordinarily refer to as “signs,” but the very fact that we are treating them as samples means they could be called signs; indeed, that we can call them samples is testimony to the human creation of a world of what we are accustomed to calling “signs.” A sample is both systemic, gathered up as “data,” or, if one likes, following Johanna Drucker, “capta,” and irreducibly singular, marked by history and its specific uses. We all use signs and are signs, which means we put ourselves forward as samples, which is only slightly different than saying we always act as exemplifications of one or another possibility. Another reason for insisting on the use of “sample” in place of “sign” (or “utterance”) is the dramatic transformation charted by Mario Carpo in
Language as Model for Technics: Literature Between Translation and Transposition
Language as Model for Technics: Literature…
Language as Model for Technics: Literature Between Translation and Transposition
A while back I suggested replacing the word “sign” with the word “sample.” I take the critique of metaphysics seriously, since I consider it a starting and differentiating point of the originary hypothesis, and “sign,” with its philosophical and linguistic roots in the signifier/signified distinction, carries a lot of metaphysical residue. If a sign is constitutive of a system in its reciprocal references to all other signs in a way that is constantly changing and non-totalizable, then signs can only be lined up with signifieds and referents on scenic terms, within events. “Samples” are, intrinsically, only identifiable upon a scene of inquiry—what they are samples of always issues in some ostensive sign. There are lots of things in the world that can be treated as samples that we wouldn’t ordinarily refer to as “signs,” but the very fact that we are treating them as samples means they could be called signs; indeed, that we can call them samples is testimony to the human creation of a world of what we are accustomed to calling “signs.” A sample is both systemic, gathered up as “data,” or, if one likes, following Johanna Drucker, “capta,” and irreducibly singular, marked by history and its specific uses. We all use signs and are signs, which means we put ourselves forward as samples, which is only slightly different than saying we always act as exemplifications of one or another possibility. Another reason for insisting on the use of “sample” in place of “sign” (or “utterance”) is the dramatic transformation charted by Mario Carpo in