{"id":1596,"date":"2011-06-03T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1596"},"modified":"2011-06-01T13:01:26","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T11:01:26","slug":"purely-objective-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1596","title":{"rendered":"Purely objective reality"},"content":{"rendered":"
Purely objective reality.<\/strong> By John Deely<\/strong>. (Semiotics, communication and cognition 4.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. x, 217. ISBN 9781934078082<\/a>. $42.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Kanavillil Rajagopalan<\/strong><\/a>, State University at Campinas, Brazil<\/em><\/p>\n

This volume is the fourth in a series titled Semiotics, communication and cognition<\/em>, edited by Paul Cobley. It treads a fine line between the Enlightenment-inspired intellectuals who, in John Deely\u2019s view, \u2018have not the foggiest idea of what objectivity properly consists in\u2019 (12) and the postmoderns who he thinks hold the key but do not always know where to insert it or when and how to turn it.<\/p>\n

The book consists of two parts. Part 1, \u2018What objective reality is and how it is possible\u2019, consists of seven chapters of varying lengths. Part 2, \u2018Background to the text\u2019, consists of three chapters of roughly twenty pages each. Each of these, as the \u2018Foreword\u2019 to the book informs us, \u2018derives from lectures\u2019 given by D at the New Bulgarian University of Sofia in 2002. With chapter headings such as \u2018What difference does it make what a sign is?\u2019 and \u2018The amazing history of sign\u2019, Part 2 might strike the reader as something of an excrescence or at best an afterthought.<\/p>\n

In a section called \u2018Terminological prenote\u2019, the author asks for the reader\u2019s forbearance in the face of \u2018old words used in new ways\u2019 as well as new words being introduced. He acknowledges that the task at hand does call for some word-wringing. With all their enthusiasm and diligence, Enlightenment thinkers failed to properly grasp the character of objectivity, D says, despite Bishop Berkeley\u2019s timely warnings to the moderns that \u2018the primary qualities could have no other status than the secondary ones\u2019 (4).<\/p>\n

D\u2019s own solution to the mental gridlock is the distinction between coenoscopic and ideoscopic knowledge, originally proposed by Jeremy Bentham and reworked by Charles Peirce, with slight orthographic reformulation at his own initiative. D conducts the reader through a most rigorous discussion, implacably splitting hairs along the way.<\/p>\n

Arguably, his style does not always match the seriousness of the content. The opening sentence of the very first chapter is an example: \u2018The word itself summarizes the problem today: \u201dobjectivity\u201d. Pray, tell me, what is it you are talking about?\u2019 (14). Such casual interjections jar with such other convoluted locutions as \u2018a core of experiential awareness that cannot be gainsaid without denying to the whole edifice of human understanding the status of something more than a solipsistic bubble, wherein the starry heavens that we believe in can yet never be attained through experience and knowledge\u2019 (5). Such stylistic lapses aside, the book does provide stimulating food for thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Purely objective reality. By John Deely. (Semiotics, communication and cognition 4.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. x, 217. ISBN 9781934078082. $42. Reviewed by Kanavillil Rajagopalan, State University at Campinas, Brazil This volume is the fourth in a series titled Semiotics, communication and cognition, edited by Paul Cobley. It treads a fine line between the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1597,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1596\/revisions\/1597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}