From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!jupiter!morgan.ucs.mun.ca!nstn.ns.ca!news.cs.indiana.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Tue Nov 19 11:10:35 EST 1991
Article 1367 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Is semiotics an "informal logic"?
Message-ID: <14897@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 15 Nov 91 18:34:03 GMT
References: <Veo4aB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM> <rreiner.689651023@yorku.ca> <91313.225035MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 46

In article <91313.225035MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET> MORIARTY@NDSUVM1.BITNET writes:

>Concerning Eco's reliability as a scientist, there is no doubt in my
>mind that he was writing fiction.  This is a serious breakthrough in
>fiction, to my way of thinking.  .... In postmodern
>critical terms, we may speak of it as pastiche, parody, multilayered
>textuality, or perhaps best, as a Minnipean satire.

>To mistake fictional discourse for authoritarian discourse is
>unfortunate, but readily understandable.

And of course we would be compounding the same error were we to consider
seriously your own explication of Eco's contribution to semiotics. Your
contribution should rather be taken as a Borgesian joke. Are you sure
you're posting to the right newsgroup?

>It demonstrates the power
>of Eco's literary style that "Theory of Semiotics" is read as a poor
>example of science rather than as a poweful work of fiction.  

For this to be true we must believe that were Eco's literary style to be
weaker -- for example, no better than that of the average semiotician --
then we would be more likely to detect the deception, whereas the
converse would seem to be the case.

>For
>internal evidence to support my interpretation, refer to his Latin
>dictamens cited in the work.  You will find that they are nearly all
>insulting to the reader, if understood.

Ok, I call your bluff: quote us some.

>I take this to be a non-
>scientific fissure in the work which signals its fictive dimension.

How does one tell a non-scientific fictive dimension signalling fissure
from a joke?

>Michael/email:MORIARTY@NDSUVM1  "de te fablua narratur" :-)

Ahem. Is that misspelling in your Latin dictamen meant to be a joke or a
fictive signal?
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


