There is an assumption hidden within this question, that I will call "strong
indexicality." That is, the terms of our discourse are ultimately not
translatable. There is no rationality all the way down. This has important
implications for theories purporting to establish human communication on the
basis of a model of rational discourse, correspondence rules, etc. Strong
indexicality means that untranslatability is the rule. Epistemological
indeterminacy, rather than certainty, motivates discourse. When we stop
talking, we stop learning and knowing. Drew Milne's notion of the performance
of scepticism represents one attempt to make critical sense of this model of
discourse in art. The Annotations project, then, is based on a model of "weak
indexicality." It did not set out to provide a proof of the nature of
indexicality in discourse; it began with the assumption that at least some
dialogical partners could talk to each other and understand each other. Of
course, the sense in which UNDERSTANDING (verstehen) was theorized is also
open to criticism. I no longer see the Annotations project, or any of the
calls for "participation" issues by Art & Language, as embodying a coherent
sense of indexicality. Returning to another sense of indexicality, the
Annotations are simply a convenient schema with which to display the
discursive traces of this or that community.
Michael Corris(InvCollege@aol.com)
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