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ABSTRACT
This study aims to corroborate Merleau-Ponty’s interpretations of fundamental ideas from Saussure’s linguistics by linking them to works that were independently elaborated by Jan Mukařovský, Czech structuralist aesthetician and literary theorist. I provide a comparative analysis of the two authors’ theories of language and their interpretations of thought as fundamentally determined by language. On this basis, I investigate how they conceive linguistic innovation and its translation into changes in the constituted language and other social codes and institutions. I explain how they elaborate on Saussure’s idea of language as a system of oppositions by interpreting cultural innovation as a systematic variation of pre-established social norms and, similarly, linguistic innovation as gesturing within language. Connectedly, I show how Mukařovský’s works help clarify Merleau-Ponty’s focus on the gestural dimension of language. By discussing the two thinkers’ arguments in favour of linguistic innovation, I explore what could be called phenomenological limits of structuralism.
Acknowledgments
I am thankful to Felix Borecký for suggesting the idea for this paper. All mistakes and shortcomings are solely mine.
Notes
1 Some commentators explore the convergences between phenomenology and structuralism even in relation to Husserl’s original project, see Aurora, ‘The Early Husserl Between Structuralism and Transcendental Philosophy’.
2 For an overview of Mukařovský’s life and works, see Sládek, ‘Mukařovský’s Structuralism and Semiotics’; Steiner, ‘Jan Mukařovský’s Structural Aesthetics’.
3 See in particular Merleau-Ponty, ‘From Mauss to Claude Lévi-Strauss’.
4 E.g. Schmidt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
5 See, for example, Duportail, Les institutions du monde de la vie. Merleau-Ponty et Lacan; Bimbenet, Après Merleau-Ponty: études sur la fécondité d’une pensée, 15–104; Alloa, ‘Writing, Embodiment, Deferral: Merleau-Ponty and Derrida on The Origin of Geometry’.
6 Kee, ‘Phenomenology and Ontology’, 18; similarly, Andén, ‘Language and Tradition’, 189; See also Foultier, ‘Merleau-Ponty’s Encounter’; Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language, 181–93; Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 117–24.
7 Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language; Saussure’s Linguistics.
8 Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 117–24; referring to Saussure, Writings in General Linguistics.
9 Merleau-Ponty did not know Mukařovský’s writings, but he read some linguistic works by Jakobson and Trubetzkoy, Mukařovský’s colleagues from the Prague Circle. Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Child Psychology and Pedagogy, 14–20; Themes, 20–21; Le problème de la parole, 92–6. See Leistle’s study ‘“Polyfunctionality”, “Structural Dominant” and “Poetic Function”’ for an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s early philosophy of language in relation to Jakobson’s key terms.
10 Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language, 243–4, explains that the Prague Circle put “a marked emphasis on a necessary dialectical integration between synchrony and diachrony … as well as the system and the subject”. For an overview of Mukařovský’s position within the Prague Circle, see Sládek, Metamorphoses, 34–63.
11 See Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language, 177; quoting Jakobson, Selected Writings, 713–4.
12 Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language, 244 (emphasis added). I note that Stawarska does not directly discuss Mukařovský’s works.
13 For example, in a 1932 interview, Mukařovský claimed that “structure is a phenomenological reality”, that is, noetic and not empirical-noematic (‘[Mukařovský interviewed] Rozhovor s Janem Mukařovským. Rozmlouval Bohumil Novák’, 226). In ‘Art as Semiotic Fact’ (1934), Mukařovský elaborates this approach by attempting to synthesise Saussure’s theory of linguistic sign with Husserlian terminology, in particular the distinction noetic-noematic. However, I believe that the most fruitful elements of Mukařovský’s work come to light in the context of Merleau-Pontyan, and not Husserlian, phenomenology.
14 See in particular Mukařovský, Aesthetic Function.
15 Mukařovský, ‘Place of the Aesthetic Function among the Other Functions’, 40.
16 Sládek points out that, “in contrast to the post-structuralist proclamation of the ‘death of the subject’, Mukařovský … understands the subject of the perceiver as an active participant of the process of semiosis” (Metamorphosis, 154). Similarly, according to Steiner, Mukařovský viewed the subject as “an intersubjective creator and perceiver participating in the aesthetic process”, “an active force indispensable to the genesis of meaning”, “the crucial factor in aesthetic semiosis” (‘Mukařovský’s Structural Aesthetics’, xxvii, xxxiii, xxxiv).
17 Merleau-Ponty, ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 84.
18 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished Text’, 288; cf. Phenomenology of Perception, 187, 408.
19 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 185.
20 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 17.
21 Merleau-Ponty, ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 84.
22 Merleau-Ponty, Child Psychology and Pedagogy, 64. In this text, Merleau-Ponty refers to Saussure’s idea that thought and language are two “shapeless” masses “without configuration” which produce structures through their interaction, as the contact of water and air produces waves (Course in General Linguistics, 112). On several occasions, Merleau-Ponty claims that perception “requires” expression, that is, a finer articulation such as that provided by language (e.g. Merleau-Ponty, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, 45; Themes, 4).
23 Merleau-Ponty, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, 201.
24 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished Text’, 288; referring to Cassirer.
25 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 18.
26 Ibid.; cf. Prose of the World, 115.
27 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 182; cf. ibid., 187.
28 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 17 (emphasis added).
29 Romdenh-Romluc, Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception, 216, 187 (original emphasis).
30 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 530.
31 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 5.
32 Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, 147; cf. 145 (note).
33 Hass, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, 179. See also Landes, Paradoxes of Expression, 133.
34 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 17 (cf. ‘Préface’, 25).
35 Merleau-Ponty, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, 201.
36 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 41.
37 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 17.
38 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 139–46.
39 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished Text’, 287.
40 In an unpublished working note, Merleau-Ponty writes that “thought is a movement of language [langage]” (Nature et logos, 101). Similarly, he claims that “meaning is the total movement of speech” (‘Indirect Language’, 43).
41 Merleau-Ponty uses several terminological variants of this distinction. For overviews, see Baldwin, ‘Speaking and Spoken Speech’; Kee, ‘Phenomenology and Ontology of Language and Expression’.
42 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Man and Adversity (Discussion)’, 216.
43 Literally “an utterance on utterances”, as opposed to a speech formulating a meaning that has never been an object of speech. See Kee’s analysis of this formulation, Kee, ‘Phenomenology and Ontology’, 6.
44 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 409; Foultier, ‘First Man Speaking’, 200, speaks of “a mere linking of ready-made ideas”.
45 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 409.
46 Ibid., 184, note 7.
47 Hass, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, 178; Kee, ‘Phenomenology and Ontology’, 13; cf. Foultier, ‘First Man Speaking’, 207–9.
48 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, ‘Man and Adversity (Discussion)’, 216.
49 These concepts are prominent in Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’ which Merleau-Ponty interpreted on multiple occasions (see Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 31–2; Institution and Passivity, 50–61; Themes, 114–20). Mukařovský works with an interpretation of temporal dynamics very similar to Stiftung, although he does not explicitly refer to Husserl’s concept (see, e.g. Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 115–8; ‘On Structuralism’, 3–7; see also below, section 3.2.).
50 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 413–4; Prose of the World, 99–100; Institution and Passivity, 61.
51 Language is not merely a “nomenclature”, a repertory of available meanings (Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 45).
52 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language’, 80–1; cf. Prose of the World, 99–100.
53 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language’, 79 (original emphasis removed); cf. Prose of the World, 99.
54 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 99–113; Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 114–20.
55 Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 189; cf. 200, 409, 424, 426. Merleau-Ponty presents an analogical argument regarding symbols in physical science and mathematics (The Primacy of Perception, 96). For a commentary, see Foultier, ‘Creativity in Language and Expression’, 50.
56 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 129.
57 Ibid., 99 (translation modified; cf. La prose du monde, 141); cf. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 411, 413.
58 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 99–101, 110–11.
59 Merleau-Ponty, Institution and Passivity, 61.
60 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 104, cf. ibid., 121.
61 Merleau-Ponty, Institution and Passivity, 50.
62 Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 119. Following Husserl’s ‘Origin of Geometry’, Merleau-Ponty points out that this process is based on an “essential mutation of speech” which is the development of writing.
63 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Man and Aversity (Discussion)’, 221.
64 Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 41. Merleau-Ponty similarly speaks of a “posthumous productivity” of institutions (e.g. Institution and Passivity, 6, 9).
65 On Merleau-Ponty’s discovery of Saussure’s writings, see Hass, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, 173; Kaganoi, ‘Merleau-Ponty and Saussure’, 152–3. Silverman (Inscriptions, 95–107) summarises Merleau-Ponty’s first courses on Saussure, which remain unpublished.
66 For Merleau-Ponty’s thorough analysis of Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics from this period, see Le problème de la parole, 59–91.
67 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 22.
68 For a comprehensive analysis of how the 1916 edition of the Course in General Linguistics constituted a “doctrinal view” of Saussure which was later privileged and developed by structuralists, see Stawarska, Saussure’s Philosophy of Language; Saussure’s Linguistics.
69 Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 19.
70 Ibid. (translation modified); in French, Merleau-Ponty Résumés de cours, 33.
71 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 102–3.
72 Merleau-Ponty, Child Psychology and Pedagogy, 4; Merleau-Ponty explicitly attributes this idea to Saussure (ibid., 18).
73 For an explicit argument, see Merleau-Ponty, Le problème de la parole, 63.
74 Merleau-Ponty, Acquisition of Language, 100; ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 87. Landes (Paradoxes of Expression, 134) speaks of a “metastable” system. I also note that Merleau-Ponty identifies the notions of Gestalt and structure (Le problème de la parole, 64).
75 See, for example, Ricoeur, The Question of Subject. For an excellent review of literature regarding this point, see Foultier, ‘Merleau-Ponty’s Encounter with Saussure’s Linguistics’; Stawarska, ‘Uncanny Errors’.
76 Cf. Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 99–100.
77 Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 84; cf. ibid., 67–76.
78 E.g. Foultier, ‘Creativity in Language’, 55; cf. Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 19.
79 Saussure, Writings in General Linguistics, 48.
80 Ibid., 49 (emphasis added).
81 Cf. Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 19; Saussure, Writings in General Linguistics, 85–6.
82 Cf. Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 77–85; Foultier, ‘Creativity in Language’, 59, 58.
83 Saussure, Writings in General Linguistics, 107.
84 Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 161–72; Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 78–9.
85 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 35, referring to the linguist Joseph Vendryès; cf. Merleau-Ponty, Le problème de la parole, 60, 69, 83–4, 87–8, referring to Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 161–5.
86 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 33–5; Le problème de la parole, 61–2; referring to Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 89, 125.
87 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Le problème de la parole, 70, 87–8.
88 This point is recognised by Stawarska, Saussure’s Linguistics, 122.
89 See also Foultier’s substantial critique of the arguments against the compatibility of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of language with Saussure’s linguistics: ‘Merleau-Ponty’s Encounter with Saussure’s Linguistics’. Similarly, Stawarska explains why Merleau-Ponty’s approach is fully congruent with Saussure’s: ‘Uncanny Errors’, 152; Saussure’s Philosophy, 193–4; Saussure’s Linguistics, 122–3.
90 Merleau-Ponty, Le problème de la parole, 59–60; referring to Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 5 (note), 6, 19.
91 Merleau-Ponty, Child Psychology and Pedagogy, 53.
92 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished Text’, 288; cf. Merleau-Ponty, Recherches sur l’usage littéraire du langage.
93 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 29.
94 Merleau-Ponty, ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 91; ‘Man and Adversity (Discussion)’, 216.
95 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Man and Adversity (Discussion)’, 234; cf. Prose of the World, 12–13.
96 Merleau-Ponty, ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 91.
97 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished text’, 288. Merleau-Ponty’s reference to a “syntax” should be understood primarily as a metaphorical description of any consistent use of language. Merleau-Ponty’s idea of a systematic variation is closely related to his discussions on “style” and “coherent deformation”.
98 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Introduction’, 19; The Visible and the Invisible, 119.
99 This aspect of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy is analysed by Andén, ‘Literature and the Expressions of Being’, and Apostolopoulos, ‘Systematic Import’.
100 Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 20 (translation modified); cf. Résumés de cours, 32.
101 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 31–2; ‘An Unpublished Text’, 289.
102 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 32.
103 Merleau-Ponty, ‘In Praise of Philosophy’, 55.
104 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Titres et travaux’, 31. Merleau-Ponty elaborated on the idea of institution in the Institution and Passivity course (1954–1955), which immediately followed his courses on speech and linguistic expression.
105 Mukařovský, ‘Significance of Aesthetics’, 22.
106 Mukařovský, ‘Art as a Semiotic Fact’, 82.
107 Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 16.
108 Mukařovský, ‘Art as a Semiotic Fact’, 82.
109 Mukařovský, Aesthetic Function, 25.
110 Ibid., 71.
111 Mukařovský, ‘Art as a Semiotic Fact’, 83. According to Mukařovský, the necessity for a sign to have a reference “follows quite naturally from the fact that the sign must be understood in the same way by the one who expresses it and by the one who perceives it” (ibid., 84). Mukařovský seems to believe that although our knowledge of the world is necessarily mediated by social norms and codes, it ultimately relates us to specific material and immaterial realities that exist independently of our individual or collective grasp. By considering a “relation to reality” as a necessary third aspect of sign, Mukařovský diverges from Saussure’s binary model involving only signifier and signified. Sládek, who analyses the relations between the two models (Metamorphoses, 49–56), explains that Mukařovský in fact significantly transforms Saussure’s concepts and ideas by synthesizing them with many other sources. Cf. also Sládek, ‘Mukařovský’s Structuralism and Semiotics’, 194–5.
112 Mukařovský. ‘Significance of Aesthetics’, 22.
113 Although Merleau-Ponty’s view on institutions is broader than Mukařovský’s, he too views art as a paradigmatic example of such a renewal of our institutions (see, for example, Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language’, 77).
114 The notion was initially coined by the Prague Linguistic Circle to describe the specific nature of poetry. It was Mukařovský, however, who comprehensively elaborated on it in relation to aesthetics in general.
115 Mukařovský, ‘On Structuralism’, 8.
116 Mukařovský, ‘[Art] Umění’, 185.
117 Mukařovský, ‘Significance of Aesthetics’, 20.
118 Ibid., 22.
119 Mukařovský, ‘Art as a Semiotic Fact’, 84.
120 Mukařovský, ‘Significance of Aesthetics’, 22.
121 Ibid., 20–21; ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 107.
122 Mukařovský more precisely distinguishes four areas of signification: the practical, the theoretical, the magic and religious, and the aesthetic. See Mukařovský, ‘Significance of Aesthetics’; ‘Place of the Aesthetic Function’.
123 Cf. Mukařovský, ‘Art as a Semiotic Fact’, 85–7.
124 Mukařovský presented this essay in the form of a lecture at the Prague Linguistic Circle in 1943 and only published it in print in 1966.
125 Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 109.
126 It must be noted, however, that “intentionality” and “unintentionality” do not necessarily coincide with what the actual author’s intended to communicate. They are understood by Mukařovský as semiotic categories which pertain to the work of art itself and are inseparable from the perspective of the perceiver. Mukařovský explicitly states that his analysis aims to “depsychologise” the interpretation of how a sign conveys its meaning; ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 100.
127 Ibid., 102.
128 Ibid., 102 and 105.
129 Ibid., 122. Mukařovský holds that the disunity is not merely formal and related to syntax and vocabulary, but also to the work’s contents such as protagonists’ experiences and actions, events described, or the spatio-temporal organization of the plot.
130 Ibid., 110. Regarding Mukařovský’s notion of semantic gesture, see Mercks, ‘Introductory Observations’.
131 Mukařovský, ‘On Structuralism’, 4.
132 Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 110–1.
133 Mukařovský also describes two extreme situations in which a perceiver fails to accomplish this process and consequently cannot not assume the autonomous sign (ibid., 102–110). A perceiver lacking an appropriate aesthetic distance from an artwork becomes too absorbed by it and confuses it with a real, “unintentional” event or object. Conversely, too much aesthetic distance prevents us from entering its fictional world and causes the artwork to appear as a mere artefact – someone else’s attempt at imposing their thoughts on us.
134 The principal aim of Mukařovský’s structural aesthetics is to study “interrelations among the components” of the work of art (‘On Structuralism’, 4). In a poetic literary work, for example, “single words, sound components, grammatical forms, syntactic components (the sentence structure), and phraseology” all participate in the organization and the meaning of the sign “in the same way as the thematic components” such as literary characters or events described (ibid., 9).
135 Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 125: “a feeling of unintentionality can arise in the perceiver only if obstacles stand in the way of his effort to unify the work semantically”.
136 Ibid., 125.
137 Ibid., 128: “It is precisely as a thing that the work is capable of affecting what is universally human in man, whereas in its semiotic aspect the work always appeals eventually to what is socially and temporally determined in him”.
138 Ibid., 94.
139 Ibid., 121–2.
140 The subject involved in the establishment of meaning of an autonomous sign can thus be characterised as “a point from which the whole structure can be encompassed by a single glance”; ‘[The Individual in Art] Individuum v umění’, 258.
141 Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 106. Cf. ibid., 96: The meaning-conveying function of an autonomous sign must be understood as a “semantically unifying force … operating within the work which strives toward the resolution of the contradictions and tensions among its individual parts and components”. The perceiver decides which component of the work will be the basis for the unification, which involves the possibility of changing the “dominant”.
142 Ibid., 106; cf. ibid., 96, 110.
143 Ibid., 115.
144 Ibid., 117, 122.
145 Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 120.
146 Merleau-Ponty, ‘On the Phenomenology of Language’, 88; ‘Indirect Language’, 39; Mukařovský, ‘The concept of the Whole in the Theory of Art’, 74–6.
147 Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 114, 120.
148 Merleau-Ponty, ‘An Unpublished Text’, 288.
149 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language’, 54–5.
150 Saussure writes, for example, that analogical innovation is a “conservative force”; Course in General Linguistics, 172.
151 Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 121.
152 Ibid., 119.
153 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Metaphysics and the Novel’, 26.
154 Ibid.
155 Cf. Steiner, ‘Mukařovský’s Structural Aesthetics’, xiv–xv.
156 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 13. On coherent deformation, see ibid., 60–1, 91, 104, 113; ‘Indirect Language’, 54, 78, 91. I note that Merleau-Ponty defines structure as “a whole, a system, but whose principle is not explicit and only appears as a style or coherent deformation” (Le problème de la parole, 64).
157 On systematic variation, see above, section 2.2.
158 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 35.
159 Cf. Hass, Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy, 183; Noble, Silence et langage, 181.
160 Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 112.
161 We therefore cannot fully adhere to the idea that “it is the speaking subjects who transform the system” (Andén, ‘Language and Tradition’, 196; similarly, Koukal, ‘Merleau-Ponty’s Reform of Saussure’, 601). Similarly, Foultier appears unaware of this point when criticizing Merleau-Ponty’s approach to innovation for supposedly overemphasising perception and not introducing a principle similar to Saussure’s idea of analogy (‘Creativity in Language and Expression’, 62–3).
162 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Man and Adversity (Discussion)’, 216.
163 Cf. Mukařovský, ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 96.
164 Ibid., 106.
165 Ibid., 125.
166 Ibid., 102, 109, 114–5.
167 Mukařovský’s objectivism manifests itself in his mentions of “natural” realities that are supposed to “affect” us directly. Similarly, he claims that some artistic expressions provide us with a “faithful presentation of nature”; ‘Intentionality and Unintentionality’, 108.
168 See Merleau-Ponty, Prose of the World, 3–8.
169 Cf. ibid., 112: “In speaking or writing, we do not refer to some thing to say [quelque chose à dire] which is before us, distinct from any speech”.
170 Ibid., 110.
171 Ibid.; for a detailed commentary on this topic, see Foultier, ‘First Man Speaking’, 198, 200.
172 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Le problème de la parole, 119–20.
173 Cf. Merleau-Ponty, Themes, 19; Le problème de la parole, 85, 119.
174 As Merleau-Ponty indicates, language signifies “through what it does not say as much as what it says” (Prose of the World, 43; emphasis added).
175 See Merleau-Ponty, Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression, 117–8, 173, 180, 203–4; The Visible and the Invisible, 213, 233.
176 Merleau-Ponty, ‘Indirect Language’, 46; cf. Phenomenology of Perception, 413–5, 417.