Members-only oddcast episode
Juan Acevedo Neither Speaks nor Hides, but Signifies
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Are there limits of interpretation and, if so, where are they? Is pansemioticism a real thing, and if so, is it a bad thing?
An exploration of the nature of meaning and reality through (esoteric?) hermeneutics of Heraclitus, paying visits to Derrida and Foucault, Umberto Eco, the origins and significance of the development of alphabets for alphanumeric cosmological thinking, the ‘generative grammar’ hypothesis and the problems faced by any materialist linguistics, Briceño’’s work on the origin of language, the problem of ineffability, and more. Heady stuff.
Interview Bio:
Juan Acevedo is a researcher in ancient languages, the history of science, comparative religions, and ideas generally. He is currently working on a history of Indian-Ocean navigation at the University of Lisbon. His recent book Alphanumeric Cosmology from Greek into Arabic is the best introduction to this vast and fascinating subject.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
Heraclitus:
- ‘The fairest kosmos is a rubbish heap piled up at random’: B124 DK.
- ‘Nature loves to hide’: B123 DK.
- ‘The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but signifies’: B93 DK.
Plato:
- The Phædrus on why you shouldn’t write works like the Phædrus: 276a-277a.
- On Thoth being the first one to distinguish the phonemes of language as stoicheia: Phileb. 18b6–d2.
Plotinus on the Egyptian hieroglyphics: Enn. V.8[31]6.1 ff.
Secondary:
- Jacques Derrida. For a good example of Derrida’s post-structuralist ideas about language playing along the edges of western esoteric thought – in this case, primarily of the Pseudo-Dionysian via negativa – see How to Avoid Speaking: Denials. In H. Coward and T. Foshay, editors, Derrida and Negative Theology, pages 73–142. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1992. Translated by Ken Frieden.
- Umberto Eco. The Search for the Perfect Language. Blackwell, Oxford, 1995.
- J. M. Briceño Guerrero. El origen del lenguaje. Monte Ávila, 1970.
- Pierre Hadot. The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006.
- A. Lebedev. The Metaphor of Liber Naturae and the Alphabet Analogy in Heraclitus’ Logos Fragments. In E. Fantino, U. Muss, C. Schubert, and K. Sier, editors, Heraklit im Kontext, number 8 in Studia Praesocratica, page 231–267. De Gruyter, Berlin, 2017.
- Algis Uždavinys. Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism. Prometheus Trust, Dilton Marsh, Westbury, 2008.
James Butler
June 6, 2022
Thank you both for both parts of a fascinating and truly stimulating conversation.
I hope when the podcast eventually reaches the period you’ll spend just a little time among the Hartlib circle, who sit at the juncture of esoteric thought, the birth of modern science, political-educational reform – and includes a number of people interested in devising or discovering a universal language. (IIRC they crop up, not entirely accurately in the fine details, in Eco’s book.)
A qualified defence of Eco: he’s surely right to identify that there’s a ‘post hoc ergo ante hoc’ form of reasoning which sometimes crops up among esotericists. He’s surely also right that invocations of a great, hidden _traditio_ have been associated with some pretty unpleasant political movements. (In his own lifetime, and especially in Italy!) And it’s easy enough to see how that happens: if modernity is constituted by alienation from an unchanging truth encoded in nature, then this becomes an kind of authorisation for return to blood, soil etc. It’s Eco’s conviction that this is a universally necessary conclusion I demur from – I just don’t think it entirely holds in the longer historical span – along with his implication that the politics secretly precede the metaphysical writing, which arises as justification for hatred of egalitarianism, democracy, desire for a return of the elite etc. (This is a defensible reading in some of the Italian thinkers Eco has in mind, though.) It’s an argument worth taking seriously though, in my view.
Earl Fontainelle
July 4, 2022
Dear James,
Thanks for the comments. Listeners will want to check out this article of Eco’s, in the New York Review of Books, where he makes the connections between ‘esoteric ways of thinking’ and fascism:
My favourite line from the article is: ‘combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.’ Priceless, if a cheap shot!
Marco Pasi’s work is a great place to start investigating the lineages of thought involved in Eco’s and other people’s take on this stuff:
I agree with your comment that Eco is more programmatic than history justifies — this isn’t some ineluctable cause-and-effect thing — but I can also see where he’s coming from. We might, incidentally, want to take a counter-example or two: Éliphas Levi was surely ‘guilty’ of all the types of thinking that Eco criticises as Ur-fascistic, but he was a radical republican, or, by today’s standards, a middle-of-the-road democrat. You could maybe adduce someone like Jordan Peterson, who’s all over the news these days: freaky Jungian archetype-thinking in the service of, well, standard eighteenth-century style Liberalism. Maybe one of the reasons people want to say this guy is a fascist is precisely the weird Jungian stuff, which MUST lead in that direction , according to Eco.
Christopher Eads
September 11, 2022
The enigmatic Heraclitus quotes, combined with the reference to the oral tradition in the podcast, seem to dovetail perfectly with this famous excerpt from an Alan Watts lecture, which I link to here (instead of transcribing) in deference to the power and delicateness of his oratory and the creativity of the audiovisual arrangement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU0PYcCsL6o