This was very interesting. For context, I used to be a Chomskyan linguist but I became dissatisfied with the way the theory tries to relate sentence forms to interpretations, so I tried to find satisfaction in Peircean semiotics for a while but - though I think Peirce has applications - I was later convinced by Wittgenstein that Peirce was still dealing with abstractions that presuppose an existing system of signification, and I wanted to understand how meaning is constructed at all. So there are lots of avenues I could go down - too many!
The main thing I want to comment on is your remark that "expression is always the expression of something — something more, something further, something else." There are different ways of reading this but it risks a collapse back into referentialism and, though I haven't read Cassirer, I would worry that you'd thereby end up with an analysis where expression is not sui generis, but is rather the specific relation which consists of an object being indicated by its facets. It would be the story of the blind men and the elephant, where each man receives an im-pression of the elephant, but instead of the expressed being the sum of their potential impressions, it would be something additional which is not sensible as an expression: the answer to the riddle.
Perhaps the impetus to say that there's some expressed thing beyond its expressions comes from the feeling that, though the expressed is constituted by its expressions, we could never actually make it entirely concrete - however much we manifest it, we cannot exhaust it; the impressions it could make are boundless. But note that we could maintain this with slightly less than what you said, proposing instead that expression always holds a promise of something more, without committing to the actual existence of this further thing.
Expression then becomes sui generis and boundless because the answer to the question "how do we identify expressions as belonging with one another without the expressed to bind them?" is that we construct the idea of the expressed together. It's our creativity and social practices which are inexhaustible. We play with riddles as though they have answers, but no answer is final - they're always subject to interpretation, argument and further riddling - so can we even call them answers? It doesn't matter because the mere promise of answers is enough to play the game.
"Perhaps the impetus to say that there's some expressed thing beyond its expressions comes from the feeling that, though the expressed is constituted by its expressions, we could never actually make it entirely concrete - however much we manifest it, we cannot exhaust it; the impressions it could make are boundless. But note that we could maintain this with slightly less than what you said, proposing instead that expression always holds a promise of something more, without committing to the actual existence of this further thing."
I love this. I've vacillated for a long time between different interpretations of expressivity, but I think my mood of late has made me settle on a more Kantian interpretation: the idea of the expressed is an idea we need to make sense of expression, but the mere idea (and our needing it) doesn't yet provide support for either existence claims or nonexistence claims. I was going to add this to my post, but I chickened out. So I'm quite happy with, and fully agree with, your take here. It's giving me that warm glow I get after a few sips of bourbon.
What you add to the more orthodox Kantian thought is this lovely little Rortyian or maybe Wittgensteinian twist: "Expression then becomes sui generis and boundless because the answer to the question 'how do we identify expressions as belonging with one another without the expressed to bind them?' is that we construct the idea of the expressed together. It's our creativity and social practices which are inexhaustible. We play with riddles as though they have answers, but no answer is final - they're always subject to interpretation, argument and further riddling - so can we even call them answers? It doesn't matter because the mere promise of answers is enough to play the game."
I have moods like this too, I think. I find myself wanting to say: the idea of the expressed is the idea it is (and becomes the idea it becomes) in virtue of (our reflecting on and projecting) the unity and inexhaustibility of our going-on-together in the relevant practice(s). Or something like that. So, once again, I'm deeply sympathetic to your take here, insofar as I understand it. And I'm tempted to just officially adopt it as my own here and now, simply because you put it so beautifully. More needs to be said, of course, but I'm into it.
(And as a side note, I'm actually fiddling with an unorthodox but textually and contextually supported interpretation of Kant, according to which his ideas of reason and his categories of experience are constructed in something like this way. So I might end up radicalize the orthodox Kantian interpretation into the Rortyian one, which might just be the unorthodox Kantian one!)
It's such a gift when someone comes along and totally gets what you're up to, sees straight through to the heart of the matter, phrases it better than you ever did — and inspires you to see your ideas in a new way, to find a new significance in them, or to just go ahead and embrace that nagging interpretation you've been suppressing for who-knows-what-reason.
Which is to say: I'm very grateful for your comment.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad that what I said resonated so much but I'm also intrigued by the challenges that may yet come - a Kantian relapse sounds unimaginable but all the more fun for it! I'll continue to read with interest. :)
This was very interesting. For context, I used to be a Chomskyan linguist but I became dissatisfied with the way the theory tries to relate sentence forms to interpretations, so I tried to find satisfaction in Peircean semiotics for a while but - though I think Peirce has applications - I was later convinced by Wittgenstein that Peirce was still dealing with abstractions that presuppose an existing system of signification, and I wanted to understand how meaning is constructed at all. So there are lots of avenues I could go down - too many!
The main thing I want to comment on is your remark that "expression is always the expression of something — something more, something further, something else." There are different ways of reading this but it risks a collapse back into referentialism and, though I haven't read Cassirer, I would worry that you'd thereby end up with an analysis where expression is not sui generis, but is rather the specific relation which consists of an object being indicated by its facets. It would be the story of the blind men and the elephant, where each man receives an im-pression of the elephant, but instead of the expressed being the sum of their potential impressions, it would be something additional which is not sensible as an expression: the answer to the riddle.
Perhaps the impetus to say that there's some expressed thing beyond its expressions comes from the feeling that, though the expressed is constituted by its expressions, we could never actually make it entirely concrete - however much we manifest it, we cannot exhaust it; the impressions it could make are boundless. But note that we could maintain this with slightly less than what you said, proposing instead that expression always holds a promise of something more, without committing to the actual existence of this further thing.
Expression then becomes sui generis and boundless because the answer to the question "how do we identify expressions as belonging with one another without the expressed to bind them?" is that we construct the idea of the expressed together. It's our creativity and social practices which are inexhaustible. We play with riddles as though they have answers, but no answer is final - they're always subject to interpretation, argument and further riddling - so can we even call them answers? It doesn't matter because the mere promise of answers is enough to play the game.
"Perhaps the impetus to say that there's some expressed thing beyond its expressions comes from the feeling that, though the expressed is constituted by its expressions, we could never actually make it entirely concrete - however much we manifest it, we cannot exhaust it; the impressions it could make are boundless. But note that we could maintain this with slightly less than what you said, proposing instead that expression always holds a promise of something more, without committing to the actual existence of this further thing."
I love this. I've vacillated for a long time between different interpretations of expressivity, but I think my mood of late has made me settle on a more Kantian interpretation: the idea of the expressed is an idea we need to make sense of expression, but the mere idea (and our needing it) doesn't yet provide support for either existence claims or nonexistence claims. I was going to add this to my post, but I chickened out. So I'm quite happy with, and fully agree with, your take here. It's giving me that warm glow I get after a few sips of bourbon.
What you add to the more orthodox Kantian thought is this lovely little Rortyian or maybe Wittgensteinian twist: "Expression then becomes sui generis and boundless because the answer to the question 'how do we identify expressions as belonging with one another without the expressed to bind them?' is that we construct the idea of the expressed together. It's our creativity and social practices which are inexhaustible. We play with riddles as though they have answers, but no answer is final - they're always subject to interpretation, argument and further riddling - so can we even call them answers? It doesn't matter because the mere promise of answers is enough to play the game."
I have moods like this too, I think. I find myself wanting to say: the idea of the expressed is the idea it is (and becomes the idea it becomes) in virtue of (our reflecting on and projecting) the unity and inexhaustibility of our going-on-together in the relevant practice(s). Or something like that. So, once again, I'm deeply sympathetic to your take here, insofar as I understand it. And I'm tempted to just officially adopt it as my own here and now, simply because you put it so beautifully. More needs to be said, of course, but I'm into it.
(And as a side note, I'm actually fiddling with an unorthodox but textually and contextually supported interpretation of Kant, according to which his ideas of reason and his categories of experience are constructed in something like this way. So I might end up radicalize the orthodox Kantian interpretation into the Rortyian one, which might just be the unorthodox Kantian one!)
It's such a gift when someone comes along and totally gets what you're up to, sees straight through to the heart of the matter, phrases it better than you ever did — and inspires you to see your ideas in a new way, to find a new significance in them, or to just go ahead and embrace that nagging interpretation you've been suppressing for who-knows-what-reason.
Which is to say: I'm very grateful for your comment.
Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad that what I said resonated so much but I'm also intrigued by the challenges that may yet come - a Kantian relapse sounds unimaginable but all the more fun for it! I'll continue to read with interest. :)
This is great. I'll craft a response later, when I have more time. I just wanted to say thanks for reading, and for the comment!