Author: Art & Language  
Posted: 04.07.2002; 15:51:04
Topic: Question 1
Msg #: 415 (in response to 414)
Enclosure:
Prev/Next: 414/418
Reads: 77530

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)

 



Last update: Wednesday, September 25, 2002 at 12:10:32 AM.
 

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