As a class we’ve spent some time thinking about knowledge
and if it can ever be fully original and organic. We’ve thought about how as an
author you should be pulling from all kinds of different sources, but never
settling for too long on one. That way your work is a collaboration, but in
itself becomes a new piece that has a sense of originality. However, parts of
Derrida’s essay made me question the idea of originality again. He speaks about
trace saying that all ideas and thoughts bear the trace of other things. I
began to think about what this meant for language, words, ideas and knowledge.
It seems that he’s writing that no word, or idea, or thought can exist with out
being shadowed by otherness. He believes that there is no substance in
language, but instead all words are just a long string of different forms.
Last class we looked at Locke’s essay and his five points
and spoke about the flaws and shortcomings words inherently have. Locke
believed that it was because of these shortcomings that the transfer of
knowledge was more difficult or imperfect. Perhaps these ideas of trace and
form could be another shortcoming or failure? If we are using words to signify
ideas and all words are understood in accordance, or in difference, with each
other then we can only understand each other, and ourselves, by understanding
the spatial relationship between all that exists. So can anything ever be
original? If all words are just different forms and words are signifying ideas,
than are all ideas just connected and built upon other ideas?
Although I am speaking of originality and language in very
broad terms, Derrida seems to speak of it on a much smaller scale. Unlike
Locke, Derrida spends much of his essay breaking apart singular words and
looking at them in comparison with other words and how we understand and
conceptualize these words. He speaks, ironically, by drawing attention the word
“difference” and how we understand that word through the relationships and essentially,
differences, it has compared to other words. While in Locke’s essay he was
looking at language as a whole and how we can make it more perfect, in order to
better obtain knowledge. One thing they both seem to have in common is the idea
that knowledge must exist before an idea or a word can come into use. If one
does not have this knowledge, then the use of words can cause massive gaps
between two people who are trying to communicate.
I've discussed similar ideas in my previous blog. According to Derrida there are no pure or original thoughts because we are all being influenced by each other. Time and our environment are always changing however our perspectives on things (at least to me) are the same. You mentioned that Derrida spends most of his time defining words and with examples so that it can be understood by the reader with clarity. I think that it is equally important and interesting that Derrida relies on the written and spoken language in order to provide a clear argument.
ReplyDeleteJiana,
ReplyDeleteI think Derrida, Locke and Bakhtin's essays all intertwine a great deal. Knowledge, language, ideas and words appear to be deeply interconnected, in theory. I have gathered that our language is developed by words that are connected by a network of ideas. The same ideas that we get from our knowledge of things. Ideas are connected by the knowledge that they are developed by from. Schusster suggests that Bahktin believes,"Language is thus fundamental not only to learning, but to mind; it both creates and is created by the human intelligence." This suggests to me that language is linked to knowledge, as much as it is linked to ideas and words. So it can be argued also, that knowledge doesn't necessarily precede language. Because language creates the human intelligence, and without a intellectual abilities can be find any knowledge in this world?