Re: The real problem...

Responses below.

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

>Yes, exactly Jim. But what a text means is subjected to what the author
>means otherwise there is no room for correction only rhetoric. This does
>not mean that we can always get to what an author means from only the text
>but it is the Truth, the gold we dig for. Not all mining operations are
>profitable.
>Daniel
>

This list has probably seen enough of disputes over Authorial Intent so
I don't want to rehash it all now, but of course I disagree with you
here. My position for this discussion is that if you want to comment on
the man, then you need to privilege what the man says about his own
texts over your own reading of them. If you want to comment on the
texts themselves -- then go for it. If you can, when you get a chance,
provide citations. They'd help.

>That is it Jim, according to the school that believes that the author's
>intent is irrelevant to a text it is ridiculous for some one in that school
>of thought to direct some one else to a text to find out what an author
>really mean's. Of course I believe it is possible to actually learn what an
>author intended to mean in a text, not my meaning or a field of meanings but
>what the author intended, it is some times extremely difficult to know and
>we require correction and help often but if there is not authorial intended
>meaning in the text then why beat the reader up for misunderstanding an
>author.
>Daniel
>

This is a bit of an extreme position of a rejection of authorial
intention -- at least in relationship to what I think. I pointed out
earlier that Derrida commented extensively on his own previous texts (I
guess I really don't know how extensively, but he has done it), so we
have more to go on when it comes to determining authorial intent than we
do in the case of Shakespeare, Virgil, Homer, Dante...heck, even
Salinger. Working just from a work of fiction, I don't think it's
possible to determine authorial intent -- at best, all we can do is come
up with a probability and not even really know how certain it is.

But in Derrida's case we have his prose, then later comments about his
prose. Very different beast to tackle. Can you reference a single
letter of Shakespeare's where he explained what he meant by his plays?
Of course not -- so it's all guesswork. We still have problems to deal
with in Derrida's case, but we certainly have a lot more to go on.

Some of the problems I suggested earlier all boil down to this one: that
his texts, just as linguistic constructions, could seem to mean
something other than what the author later declared to be his intent.
Either the author's own thought has changed over time and he's projected
that change backwards onto his previous writing, or he doesn't really
have that much control over language (not that good a writer), or he's
being dishonest for an unknown reason, etc. The possibilities could be
multiplied.

At any rate, John O. appears to have been making reference to Derrida
the person as a stable source of meaning for his texts because comments
from you and Luke appear to have been directed toward Derrida the person
and what _he_ believes, not what his texts "mean" by themselves. If you
want to shift the grounds of discussion to the texts, you could start
quoting them. I think so long as you assume that your reading of
Derrida's text = Derrida's intent, you're going to be wasting your time.

><<It's perfectly legitimate to claim that Derrida's later
>stated intention isn't consistent with what he actually wrote, but to
>support this claim you should cite his texts and then his later
>interpretation of it and show us how the two conflict.
>Jim>>
>
>Yes, True but that is not my point at this time.
>Daniel
>

Maybe not now. It seemed to be earlier, though.

> From what I've read of the earlier work and his later comments, the two
>don't seem to conflict at all.
>Jim
>
>Maybe not for you but some have seen conflictions but that is another round
>but non-confliction is anchored in meaning and those wobbly jetties
>remember.
>Daniel
>
>

Ok, if others have seen them, and if you see them, quote the relevant
texts and support your point. Until then, it's just hot air. John
provided quotations to support his claims.

Jim

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Received on Thu Aug 14 14:54:51 2003