The Aesthetics of Communication: Pragmatics and BeyondAESTHETICIZING PRAGMATICS The Gamut of Pragmatics Pragmatics emerged among the sciences of language at the end of the 1960's in reaction to certain totalizing models in linguistics: structuralism (primarily in Europe) and generative grammar (initially in the United States). Certain disciples of Chomsky became dissatisfied with autono mous syntax and later with generative semantics: they decided to break away from their mentor. Whereas Chomsky continued to talk a lot about very little, they defied him by speaking very suggestively about an exces sively broad range of phenomena. Pragmatics -which Bar-Hillel consid ered as a 'wastebasket discipline' in the fifties - nevertheless gained respectability. The history of pragmatics spans, of course, much more than three decades. The Stoic conception of language, in the shadow of the great Greek tradition and therefore intensely subversive, had in fact a pragmatic aim. The term pragmatisch appears in Kant: it expresses a relation with a human goal, this goal being only determinable within a community. This characterization naturally inspires the pragmaticism of l the Neo-Kantian Charles Sanders Peirce . It is this Kant-Peirce lineage that led to Morris and Carnap's rather bland conceptions of pragmatics, after the heavy losses incurred by positivism and behaviorism. In any case, despite the constant presence of a pragmatic approach in the history of thought, this reassessment of pragmatics (against the triumphs proclaimed by structuralism and generativism) was experienced as a Significant break through. A whole range of pragmatics came to the attention of linguists. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Three Little Ontologies | 8 |
CHAPTER 1 | 17 |
Calculus and Manipulation | 24 |
The Art of War or Kriegskunst | 31 |
CHAPTER 2 | 39 |
Linguistic Intermezzo | 46 |
Sensing Time | 48 |
Values as the Reasons for Passion | 103 |
The Reasons for Desiring Passion | 105 |
CHAPTER 5 | 111 |
The Overwhelmed Imagination | 118 |
The Schema of Aesthetic Values | 124 |
The Aestheticity of Elegance | 130 |
CHAPTER 6 | 137 |
Natural Grammar and its Strategies | 143 |
Suffering Time | 62 |
The Indexicality of Figures and Configurations | 76 |
The Discursive Economy of Pathos | 90 |
The Royal Way | 151 |
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A.J. Greimas abduction abductive inference abductive reasoning according aesthetic categories aesthetic judgment aestheticization affective community aisthèsis anger Apel argumentation Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle's axiology beautiful being-together Bergson Chapter cognitive common sense conception consequence constraint Critique of Judgment Descartes discourse domain elegance emotion enthusiasm epistemological ethics evaluation example fact faculty figure finite function game of society game theory grammar Greimas Grice harmony Homo Economicus human hypostasis Ibidem iconic idea imagination infinite game interaction interpretation intersubjectivity intuition Kant Kant's Kantian legitimation logic maxim meaning melodic fusion melody moral movement nature norm ontology paradigm Paragraph Paris Parret passion pathos Peirce philosophy play player political possible pragmatic object pragmaticism presupposes propositions prototype psychological reason relation rhetoric rhythm Ribot schema search for foundations seduction semantic semiotics sensation sensible sensus communis sentiment social soul speech act strategic rationality strategist strategy structure sublime synaesthesia syntagmatics taste temporality theory transcendental translated understanding University Press