L’ontologie du négatif

Methodos

关键词: Bergson;    difference;    Hegel;    negation;    ontology;    Saussure;   

DOI  :  10.4000/methodos.674

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

No statement more contributed to the philosophical impact of structural linguistics, than Saussure’s very famous sentence: “In language, there is only differences, without positive terms.” But it is also one of the most criticized: it has been said that this differential dimension of linguistic signs hold rather to the fact that language is a limited mean to convey an unlimited number of messages (cf. Jakobson, Martinet, Descombes, Pavel). This paper shows that this strategy to avoid the ontological commitment of linguistics has a theoretical cost: it must eventually hold a functionalist theory of language with referentialist semantics. Besides, contrary to the common interpretation, only the signifier and the signified are but differential for Saussure; the whole sign is absolutely positive. The paper, through a reading of Bergson and Hegel, shows that the notion of pure qualitative difference is unsustainable, and tries to reconstitute Saussure”s value theory through the distinction between difference and opposition. What comes up is a different conception of the idea that mankind is characterized by it symbolic capacities.

【 授权许可】

Unknown