Am I a naughty Mormon boy if I like Nietzsche?

[Honorentheos]

16 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

For Nietzsche the true world is an idealized world only reachable by some idealized figure like the Stoic Sage. Nietzsche's own Superman is a play on that. The true world for Nietzsche is unobtainable and unable to be demonstrated. It's an ideal that is designed to distract from the world we live in.

The world we live as established by evidence by definition can't be a "true world" in Nietzsche's sense. There's a very simple reason for that - it's been established by evidence.

The point for Nietzsche though is that the artificial true world designed to repress the actual world but make the individual believer feel important. His whole point is that theistic beliefs are divorced from the actual world. But why does he make that claim? Because he has no evidence for them. Thus if there were evidence his claims about what constitutes the "true world" would be undermined. The whole argument in Twilight of Idols is about how science and evidence undermines the older ways of thinking.

We have completely different understandings of what Nietzsche was saying here. There is a section in Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols where he proposes a series of reductions moving the "true worlds" of aspiration further and further away from the world as it appears to be and into legend. I think this is what you refer to but are misreading it to imagine he accepted any of these stages which he does not. The first of these being that the true world is only obtainable to the sage, but obtainable in the here-and-now. He wasn't saying this was the world as it is, but the world as sold to people to escape the world as it is or appears to be. Therefore, people are told to trust the sage, the philosopher, the mystic, the living Buddha who has obtained the true world in order to perhaps do so themselves. The stages continue to push the "true world" further and further away with the next stage being one where only sages and the like can obtain the true world but only after death. Then through other stages further and further out of reach such as Plato's world outside the cave of which we only can see the shadows.

The world as it is, the apparent world, is what matters to Nietzsche and is essential to understanding his ideas regarding will, self, and the primacy of life. And this world is not hidden from anyone or unobtainable. It just isn't as appealing as the "true worlds" being offered which is why so may "true world" theories are available.

Quote

Because the belief that results is simply different from believing it in a secondary fashion. To give an example of the distinction I'm making, consider someone who has never seen an elephant - not even a photograph. There's a difference between his knowing about elephants in a secondary fashion as people describe an elephant to him and his actually encountering a real elephant. 

Now you're right people conflate those two types of knowledge. We might call them the distinction between the experiential knowledge and the discursive knowledge. But they simply are wrong to do so. You make the same mistake. You conflate being told about an answer with encountering it itself. The content simply isn't the same in the two cases.

Rather than use something tangible like an elephant, let's use something less tangible like race. Race, being a social construct, is something taught. What one learns about it could include a wide range of information from prejudicial to historical usage to, well, it being a social construct. But what a person gets taught will have deterministic effects on how they interact with someone who they perceive as falling in some sort of racial category they've been taught.

Mormonism does this with all sorts of thing, most critically with giving emotions epistemological value outside of intuition and claiming it is pure intelligence sent from God to confirm the truth. But even beyond that, it provides guides and explanations for interpreting these emotional events to - surprise! - confirm underlying beliefs found within Mormonism. If one has an experience that does not conform easily to the patterns there are still explanations provided or substitutes for "knowledge" that can fill this void such as social connectivity and well being.

But more directly, you and I could argue that the evidence available either in support or against the LDS "true world" theory brings people to very different conclusions. You may or may not believe that I was a very committed member through my early 30's, served in bishoprics, did genealogy and temple work very frequently, was an avid student of the scriptures and the gospel as one might call it in sum, etc., etc. and had what I believed to be very clear, very compelling spiritual witnesses of the validity of the church. I do not discard this evidence but included it in the great set of evidence that I believe is both more comprehensive and most compelling that Mormonism is built on outright fabrications from the 19th century and is all to human in origin. If I were to guess, I suspect you could give Nietzsche the time traveler all of the evidence you have and he would not view Mormonism as being other than being built on a "true world" theory. In reality, I'd argue what makes the LDS true world theory workable for most isn't that they have access to the most evidence but that they have access to a given set of evidences...and aren't interested in honest engagement with other evidence. And THAT is the essence of building one's life on a "true world" theory. IMO, of course.

[Honorentheos]

16 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

You have just affirmed Rorty view of truth as community agreement, but totally missed Wittgenstein's language games which take into account community variables.

Reality may exist in communities of language games, but it is a fantasy to suggest that it us created by humanity as a whole.

If you have ever translated anything that should be clear.

If everyone in humanity agreed on what the world was that would be true theory. Hint: that is a fantasy.

See siggy below for Rorty

Haha!

Good times  -

http://existentialcomics.com/comic/141

 

Edited July 4, 2017 by Honorentheos

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Honorentheos said:

We have completely different understandings of what Nietzsche was saying here. There is a section in Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols where he proposes a series of reductions moving the "true worlds" of aspiration further and further away from the world as it appears to be and into legend. I think this is what you refer to but are misreading it to imagine he accepted any of these stages which he does not. The first of these being that the true world is only obtainable to the sage, but obtainable in the here-and-now. He wasn't saying this was the world as it is, but the world as sold to people to escape the world as it is or appears to be. Therefore, people are told to trust the sage, the philosopher, the mystic, the living Buddha who has obtained the true world in order to perhaps do so themselves. The stages continue to push the "true world" further and further away with the next stage being one where only sages and the like can obtain the true world but only after death. Then through other stages further and further out of reach such as Plato's world outside the cave of which we only can see the shadows.

The world as it is, the apparent world, is what matters to Nietzsche and is essential to understanding his ideas regarding will, self, and the primacy of life. And this world is not hidden from anyone or unobtainable. It just isn't as appealing as the "true worlds" being offered which is why so may "true world" theories are available.

Rather than use something tangible like an elephant, let's use something less tangible like race. Race, being a social construct, is something taught. What one learns about it could include a wide range of information from prejudicial to historical usage to, well, it being a social construct. But what a person gets taught will have deterministic effects on how they interact with someone who they perceive as falling in some sort of racial category they've been taught.

Mormonism does this with all sorts of thing, most critically with giving emotions epistemological value outside of intuition and claiming it is pure intelligence sent from God to confirm the truth. But even beyond that, it provides guides and explanations for interpreting these emotional events to - surprise! - confirm underlying beliefs found within Mormonism. If one has an experience that does not conform easily to the patterns there are still explanations provided or substitutes for "knowledge" that can fill this void such as social connectivity and well being.

But more directly, you and I could argue that the evidence available either in support or against the LDS "true world" theory brings people to very different conclusions. You may or may not believe that I was a very committed member through my early 30's, served in bishoprics, did genealogy and temple work very frequently, was an avid student of the scriptures and the gospel as one might call it in sum, etc., etc. and had what I believed to be very clear, very compelling spiritual witnesses of the validity of the church. I do not discard this evidence but included it in the great set of evidence that I believe is both more comprehensive and most compelling that Mormonism is built on outright fabrications from the 19th century and is all to human in origin. If I were to guess, I suspect you could give Nietzsche the time traveler all of the evidence you have and he would not view Mormonism as being other than being built on a "true world" theory. In reality, I'd argue what makes the LDS true world theory workable for most isn't that they have access to the most evidence but that they have access to a given set of evidences...and aren't interested in honest engagement with other evidence. And THAT is the essence of building one's life on a "true world" theory. IMO, of course.

Lol.

The world "as it is", when thought about or spoken in language IS a social construct.

Your world construct, every word if this post is YOUR "TRUE WORLD" based on your understanding

Rock on amigo. Your religion is an interesting one, but just the usual secularism you see everywhere.

At least come up with something original and follow your prophet Zarathustra.

             --Also sprach Zarathustra 

 

[Honorentheos]

45 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Lol.

The world "as it is", when thought about or spoken in language IS a social construct.

Your world construct, every word if this post is YOUR "TRUE WORLD" based on your understanding

Rock on amigo. Your religion is an interesting one, but just the usual secularism you see everywhere.

At least come up with something original and follow your prophet Zarathustra.

             --Also sprach Zarathustra 

 

Let's see. This discussion is originally about the question: Is reading Nietzsche valuable for a Mormon? and might be a sort of Korihor who tells people to rely on themselves rather than Jesus?

We've ran through a lot of terrain since then, hopefully having confirmed that the foundations of Nietzche's philosophy would be deconstructive to the Mormon worldview and is not supportive of what appear to be superficial alignment on the subject of exaltation. We've even speculated on whether or not Nietzsche's famous statements about god being dead would be applied by Nietzsche to the God of Mormonism. Would he see Mormon theology, as much as Mormon doctrine can aspire to the term, as overcoming his reasons for seeing modern western society as having killed God? Or would the Mormon view of God be just one of thousands of shadows of God left over, and also ought to be killed conceptually?

But nowhere have I discussed my own view about life, meaning, and everything. What?! I can talk about Nietzsche without claiming devotion to him and making a religion out of what I have read and seek to understand?!

It's crazy, I know. But true, my friend, very true.

So, while being quite off in your assessment, truly I hope you rock on, amigo!

ETA: To be fair to Nietzsche he doesn't speak of the world using Sein, or "to be". He uses that language in parentheticals when describing true world theories such as "wahren Sein".

For example, here's the original German and a second rate but free online translation of a relevant section from Twilight of the Idols -

German

Zweiter Satz. Die Kennzeichen, welche man dem "wahren Sein" der Dinge gegeben hat, sind die Kennzeichen des Nicht Seins, des Nichts, - man hat die "wahre Welt" aus dem Widerspruch zur wirklichen Welt aufgebaut: eine scheinbare Welt in der That, insofern sie bloss eine moralisch-optische Täuschung ist.

English

Second sentence. The signs, which have been given the "true Being (wahre Sein)" of things are the hallmarks of non-Being (Nicht-Seins), of nothingness, - one the "true world" is made up of the opposition to the true world: indeed an apparent (scheinbare) world, insofar they merely a moral-optical illusion (moralisch-optische Tauschung).

The adjective he uses to speak of the world "as it is" is wirklich which has connotations of truth striped of the subjective and is the root for the German word for reality.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Honorentheos

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

We have completely different understandings of what Nietzsche was saying here. There is a section in Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols where he proposes a series of reductions moving the "true worlds" of aspiration further and further away from the world as it appears to be and into legend. I think this is what you refer to but are misreading it to imagine he accepted any of these stages which he does not. The first of these being that the true world is only obtainable to the sage, but obtainable in the here-and-now. He wasn't saying this was the world as it is, but the world as sold to people to escape the world as it is or appears to be. Therefore, people are told to trust the sage, the philosopher, the mystic, the living Buddha who has obtained the true world in order to perhaps do so themselves. The stages continue to push the "true world" further and further away with the next stage being one where only sages and the like can obtain the true world but only after death. Then through other stages further and further out of reach such as Plato's world outside the cave of which we only can see the shadows.

I don't see how that is incompatible with what I said. Again, what did Nietzsche think of the descriptions of science and you have your answer for what I'm getting at. One can accept perspectivism and science at the same time. Remember that at the end both the apparent world and the true world are banished. So what remains? First off remember that the target of his critique is metaphysics. The line he traces is what he sees as the history of metaphysics beginning with Plato. The end is clearly a satire/critique of Kant. But the end isn't an end. Nietzsche exposes metaphysics for what it is, but offers no escape. (This point is particularly important for the Continental appropriation of Nietzsche - analytic philosophy tends to downplay this point) His point is that the distinction between the true and apparent world is itself a problem. For those who can accept this, they have the real world needing no distinction between the two.

I'll leave it to you how that relates to evidence.

I will say that the point Nietzsche ends upon is much closer to Mark's views than my own. It's precisely this point that is behind most of Mark's Rorty inspired critiques.

Now there is an argument to be made that we shouldn't stop here. That Nietzsche is in fact not offering something like Rorty or Derrida. The appeal here is to the section "Improvers of Mankind"

Quote

Moral judgments, like religious ones, belong to a stage of ignorance in which the very concept of the real, and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking. "Truth" at this stage designates all sorts of things that we today call "figments of the imagination." Moral judgments are therefore never to be taken literally: so understood, they are always merely absurd. Semiotically, however, they remain invaluable: they reveal, at least for those who can interpret them, the most valuable realities of cultures and psychologies that did not know how to "understand" themselves. Morality is only a language of signs, a group of symptoms: one must know how to interpret them correctly to be able to profit from them. 

While he's talking about morality, it points to a realism behind the figment of morality. This is a kind of scientific realism. It's what is pointed to by losing the distinction between the true and apparent world. (I should add this is how I read Derrida as well -- as opposed to the more common postmodern reading of Derrida) Niezsche's solution is to not attempt the then still popular "myth" of a detached God's eye view that scientists should seek but to view the world from within the world. Again I might be reading Nietzsche here with a bit too much Derrida but I think interpretations are selected by the world. That's why it is the real world.

So I think things are more complex than you suggest - even acknowledging that in these passages there are several significant different readings one can find within major philosophers.

Quote

Race, being a social construct, is something taught.

You realize within science that is still a very, very controversial thesis, right? I know quite a few evolutionary anthropologists who would laugh at you for saying such a thing. I'm not saying they are right, (honestly I don't understand why people care) but perhaps a less controversial example is in order.

Quote

What one learns about it could include a wide range of information from prejudicial to historical usage to, well, it being a social construct. But what a person gets taught will have deterministic effects on how they interact with someone who they perceive as falling in some sort of racial category they've been taught.

More or less the point I think you're trying to get at is the distinction between social norms and natural kinds. It's a distinction I find quite important although I suspect Mark differs with me on that point. The problem is for the point I was originally making both function exactly the same way. If I am attempting to communicate some behavior or practice, regardless of whether it is a natural kind or social norm, I have to have some basis from which to communicate. I was making a point really about the very possibility of experiencing something "as" something. That applies as equally to fictions and natural things. It's just that I think the crucial elements are perhaps a tad harder to explain if we start with fictions or social norms. Which was why I used a real object like an elephant.

Quote

But more directly, you and I could argue that the evidence available either in support or against the LDS "true world" theory brings people to very different conclusions.

You're getting ahead of yourself. First we have to agree upon what Nietzsche's alternative to the true world is. I don't think we have that agreement let alone whether Nietzsche's true world conception ends up being useful. So before we go to judging whether all conceptions of Mormonism are a Nietzschean true world we should first get straight what criteria we are debating applies.

Again, I think the easiest question there is how we'd apply the criteria to the realm of science. That brings into focus what is at question when we then apply to Mormonism. Nietzsche's particular beliefs here are of course not necessarily applicable. Once again that was the whole point of bringing up explaining quantum field theory and black holes to Nietzsche. A true science he has no evidence for. Thus how he appeals with his senses is severely limited.

Edited July 4, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

The adjective he uses to speak of the world "as it is" is wirklich which has connotations of truth striped of the subjective and is the root for the German word for reality.

Well I'll be the first to note I can't read German (which causes no end of difficulties when engaging Heidegger) but I think you're pushing towards the realist reading of Nietzsche. Which again I confess I like along with the realist reading of Derrida. Even if it turns out not to be their positions, it's a philosophically productive way of reading them.

But then the question really just reduces to, are the central claims of Mormonism real and are they knowable? I suspect Nietzsche is a bit of a distraction since it's just an overly complicated way of asking that question.

Quote

Let's see. This discussion is originally about the question: Is reading Nietzsche valuable for a Mormon? and might be a sort of Korihor who tells people to rely on themselves rather than Jesus?

We've ran through a lot of terrain since then, hopefully having confirmed that the foundations of Nietzche's philosophy would be deconstructive to the Mormon worldview and is not supportive of what appear to be superficial alignment on the subject of exaltation. We've even speculated on whether or not Nietzsche's famous statements about god being dead would be applied by Nietzsche to the God of Mormonism. Would he see Mormon theology, as much as Mormon doctrine can aspire to the term, as overcoming his reasons for seeing modern western society as having killed God? Or would the Mormon view of God be just one of thousands of shadows of God left over, and also ought to be killed conceptually?

I think the original dispute was whether we have to embrace all of Nietzsche (or any other thinker) or whether we can deal with particular arguments -- and perhaps even come to different conclusions.

Nietzsche's own statement is worthwhile on this point:

Quote

The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the building: posterity discovers it in the bricks with which he built and which are then often used again for better building: in the fact, that is to say, that building can be destroyed and nonetheless possess value as material. (Mixed Opinions and Maxims, Aphorism 201 (1879))

I rather think that quote gets to the heart of our continued disagreement on Nietzsche's utility.

Edited July 5, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I don't see how that is incompatible with what I said. Again, what did Nietzsche think of the descriptions of science and you have your answer for what I'm getting at. One can accept perspectivism and science at the same time. Remember that at the end both the apparent world and the true world are banished. So what remains? First off remember that the target of his critique is metaphysics. The line he traces is what he sees as the history of metaphysics beginning with Plato. The end is clearly a satire/critique of Kant. But the end isn't an end. Nietzsche exposes metaphysics for what it is, but offers no escape. (This point is particularly important for the Continental appropriation of Nietzsche - analytic philosophy tends to downplay this point) His point is that the distinction between the true and apparent world is itself a problem. For those who can accept this, they have the real world needing no distinction between the two.

I'll leave it to you how that relates to evidence.

I will say that the point Nietzsche ends upon is much closer to Mark's views than my own. It's precisely this point that is behind most of Mark's Rorty inspired critiques.

Now there is an argument to be made that we shouldn't stop here. That Nietzsche is in fact not offering something like Rorty or Derrida. The appeal here is to the section "Improvers of Mankind"

While he's talking about morality, it points to a realism behind the figment of morality. This is a kind of scientific realism. It's what is pointed to by losing the distinction between the true and apparent world. (I should add this is how I read Derrida as well -- as opposed to the more common postmodern reading of Derrida) Niezsche's solution is to not attempt the then still popular "myth" of a detached God's eye view that scientists should seek but to view the world from within the world. Again I might be reading Nietzsche here with a bit too much Derrida but I think interpretations are selected by the world. That's why it is the real world.

So I think things are more complex than you suggest - even acknowledging that in these passages there are several significant different readings one can find within major philosophers.

You realize within science that is still a very, very controversial thesis, right? I know quite a few evolutionary anthropologists who would laugh at you for saying such a thing. I'm not saying they are right, (honestly I don't understand why people care) but perhaps a less controversial example is in order.

More or less the point I think you're trying to get at is the distinction between social norms and natural kinds. It's a distinction I find quite important although I suspect Mark differs with me on that point. The problem is for the point I was originally making both function exactly the same way. If I am attempting to communicate some behavior or practice, regardless of whether it is a natural kind or social norm, I have to have some basis from which to communicate. I was making a point really about the very possibility of experiencing something "as" something. That applies as equally to fictions and natural things. It's just that I think the crucial elements are perhaps a tad harder to explain if we start with fictions or social norms. Which was why I used a real object like an elephant.

You're getting ahead of yourself. First we have to agree upon what Nietzsche's alternative to the true world is. I don't think we have that agreement let alone whether Nietzsche's true world conception ends up being useful. So before we go to judging whether all conceptions of Mormonism are a Nietzschean true world we should first get straight what criteria we are debating applies.

Again, I think the easiest question there is how we'd apply the criteria to the realm of science. That brings into focus what is at question when we then apply to Mormonism. Nietzsche's particular beliefs here are of course not necessarily applicable. Once again that was the whole point of bringing up explaining quantum field theory and black holes to Nietzsche. A true science he has no evidence for. Thus how he appeals with his senses is severely limited.

You know it's funny how we have been concentrating on our differences and ignoring the vast swaths of areas of agreement- I mean we are both Mormon Pragmatists and differ only on Peirce's theory of signs.  That is really a miniscule difference in the big picture.  It really shows up in a discussion like this one!

[stemelbow]

On ‎6‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 1:37 PM, boblloyd91 said:

So I recently read Nietzsche's work "The Birth of Tragedy". I actually quite liked how he discusses living an authentic life and embracing the chaotic reality of struggle and suffering. However he also strikes me as a German Korihor with his discussion about relying completely on the self. I was curious what those here on this board who are philosophically inclined think of Nietzsche. Is he hazardous to spiritual health? Or can something be gained from studying him?

I liked reading from him.  he spoke to me.  But what pissed me off, after years of me reading him and reading about him I had been pronouncing his name embarrassingly wrong.  I probably at different times sounded off telling people some idea he shared with me, using his name, coming off all ignorant to the listener as I mispronounced his name.  Ah well...I was probably already an embarrassment to these folks, as I come off as a big old embarrassment in all situations in life. 

[USU78]

On 7/4/2017 at 0:47 PM, mfbukowski said:

Lol.

The world "as it is", when thought about or spoken in language IS a social construct.

Your world construct, every word if this post is YOUR "TRUE WORLD" based on your understanding

Rock on amigo. Your religion is an interesting one, but just the usual secularism you see everywhere.

At least come up with something original and follow your prophet Zarathustra.

             --Also sprach Zarathustra 

I'd like to expand on my prior thoughts about "real/true world" Mormonism.

The reality/truth of the plan of happiness is built into our DNA.

I had previously brought up the relationship of the child with its mother and our recognition of having lost a prior paradise existence.  The lost womb, where we knew our place and where everything we needed was available without any effort on our part, teaches us hunger, scarcity, loss, regret, fear, loneliness, alienation, nausea, etc.  The existentialists and, I think, Nietzsche, understand this much.  They don't speak well of why these feelings are necessary for our growth  ...  or at least not in any way that is satisfying.  They leave us wondering why we ever took the trouble to follow them down their rabbit hole.  Yet I see therein a beautiful account of our feelings upon experiencing our paradise lost.

The moment the infant experiences hunger, especially the hunger engendered by the empty breast which it has come to rely on, and later experiences the hoped-for satiation of the refilled breast and thence stomach, the infant is taught that every loss can and will be restored.  But that is just the hunger.

Of course, the loneliness and alienation cannot be fully assuaged by a return to the womb, but the compensation provided by our very DNA, marriage, family, and community, demonstrate that that which is provided in lieu of the womb is far superior to what was lost.  Embracement of those compensations by embracement of marriage, family life, and community -- by embracing the plan for earth life  -- show us the pattern of our ultimate being. By following what is required of us in order to achieve compensation for what we lost, we learn to follow the same steps required for our growth into g-dhood.  For just as child becomes man, man can become g-d.  For just as we learn to endure loss through hope of the return of the full breast and, hence, the full stomach, just so we can learn to endure and overcome the hunger, loss, alienation, scarcity, fear, nausea, etc, and have restored a surfeit to us, in even greater measure than all that we could ever imagine.

Our "real/true world" pattern is imprinted on our DNA, and fills to satiety our very being.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I liked reading from him.  he spoke to me.  But what pissed me off, after years of me reading him and reading about him I had been pronouncing his name embarrassingly wrong.  I probably at different times sounded off telling people some idea he shared with me, using his name, coming off all ignorant to the listener as I mispronounced his name.  Ah well...I was probably already an embarrassment to these folks, as I come off as a big old embarrassment in all situations in life. 

If you want to sound cool use the German pronunciation which is for all practical purposes "Neet-sha"

You could go with with the old rhyme "Neet-she is peachy" but that is not at all cool.  And if you are in California NEVER say "Frisco" for the name of a large city here.

Another one is "Vit-gen shtine". which rhymes with "Valentine".    It drives me nuts when people say "Wit-gen- steen" because I am a total snob.  In German when you see an ei or ie combination, the pronunciation is always taking the second letter of the combination and giving it an English long sound, so that "ei" in Wittgenstein rhymes with valentine but Nietzsche (ie, not ei) is "Neetsha".  Also in German, an e at the end of a name is pronounced as an English short "a"

But you can get away with getting it wrong if you are a Brit because they anglicize everything, refusing to get names "right"

And so we have "Munich" instead of "Munchen"- pronounced "Moonshen"  (even missing the umlaut would help) and "Florence" instead of "Firenze"

I remember going crazy looking at a map for "Prague" when the only thing that matched the co-ordinates was "Praha"

And regarding Polish place names?   Fegitaboutit.

Everyone who does not speak Polish is going to sound stupid no matter what they do because letters often have a different pronunciation than in English

And then we have French.......

 

[USU78]

I'm a PhiloKraut and I approve this message.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, USU78 said:

I'd like to expand on my prior thoughts about "real/true world" Mormonism.

The reality/truth of the plan of happiness is built into our DNA.

I had previously brought up the relationship of the child with its mother and our recognition of having lost a prior paradise existence.  The lost womb, where we knew our place and where everything we needed was available without any effort on our part, teaches us hunger, scarcity, loss, regret, fear, loneliness, alienation, nausea, etc.  The existentialists and, I think, Nietzsche, understand this much.  They don't speak well of why these feelings are necessary for our growth  ...  or at least not in any way that is satisfying.  They leave us wondering why we ever took the trouble to follow them down their rabbit hole.  Yet I see therein a beautiful account of our feelings upon experiencing our paradise lost.

The moment the infant experiences hunger, especially the hunger engendered by the empty breast which it has come to rely on, and later experiences the hoped-for satiation of the refilled breast and thence stomach, the infant is taught that every loss can and will be restored.  But that is just the hunger.

Of course, the loneliness and alienation cannot be fully assuaged by a return to the womb, but the compensation provided by our very DNA, marriage, family, and community, demonstrate that that which is provided in lieu of the womb is far superior to what was lost.  Embracement of those compensations by embracement of marriage, family life, and community -- by embracing the plan for earth life  -- show us the pattern of our ultimate being. By following what is required of us in order to achieve compensation for what we lost, we learn to follow the same steps required for our growth into g-dhood.  For just as child becomes man, man can become g-d.  For just as we learn to endure loss through hope of the return of the full breast and, hence, the full stomach, just so we can learn to endure and overcome the hunger, loss, alienation, scarcity, fear, nausea, etc, and have restored a surfeit to us, in even greater measure than all that we could ever imagine.

Our "real/true world" pattern is imprinted on our DNA, and fills to satiety our very being.

Excellent points- I had never seen the Plan of Salvation as an allegory for human life back to the womb as a parallel for pre-earth life!  I kind of started with Adam and a fall from innocence but those are great points.

Clearly it starts with D&C 89:18

Quote

 

..."health in the navel and marrow to the bones...

 

You cannot get closer to the importance of "health in the navel" than in the womb!

This whole notion of "true worlds" to me though is pure metaphysics ( a bad word! ) to me even "chairs and tables" are human constructs, they are names for an object's function in our lives.  Hiking, a rock can make a perfect chair and we might even call it that.  For me "things as they are" are pure human experience, the qualum of the color red, the sound of a trumpet- but even calling them by the names "red" or "the sound of a trumpet" is a step removed from those qualia.

And so I see what are called dreams and visions, as qualia themselves, are not particularly removed from the qualia of chairs and tables.  Taking all of these are raw experiences AS experiences and ripping them out of their contexts and attempting to represent them as squiggles as a page is simply absurd.  The letters R-E-D do not even contain any of the qualum of red and so cannot ever "represent" that experience, though we understand what the word means since we also have had the experience ourselves and know it by name.  I am no more my name that the qualum named by "red" is its name.

And so personal revelation is direct experience and is the only path to "things as they are" but indeed every moment of our lives we are immersed in direct experiences of one kind or another experiencing "the world" directly.  

And not to stir the pot because I don't want to get into it now, that is the problem I have with Peirce and his "signs".  I don't want to say that the sign "points to" anything- which presupposes there are there IS "some-thing" to be pointed to and by implication that brings in dualism.  Clark insists that this is not the case at all, but I just cannot see that as NOT dualism.

But this is where Clark and I differ, which I have pointed out before, is a very tiny disagreement in the big picture. 

So the question is if I am the closet dualist for making the break between language and direct experience.  If so I plead guilty because to me it is abundantly clear that the word "red" IS NOT what I mean by the word.  Explain the color to a blind man or the sound to someone deaf, when either of those people can use the word perfectly well without having experienced it, and it will be clear that there is a gap between language and experience.

So if that is a "true world" explanation so be it.  If that is the case, virtually every philosopher in the twentieth century is a dualist and the Rorty quote below also exemplifies dualism in separating causes outside of mental states with causes within mental states.

Good luck with that assertion.

And even if this is "seen as" dualism, there is always the other picture of the rabbit duck that sees it the other way, so either way I am "safe".  I can easily just adopt the Rorty view as he sees it and still cobble together a view that works.

In philosophy all you have to do is create a distinction to save yourself.  That's the good and the bad news in dealing in language.

That goes back to Aristotle.

Make a distinction and show a difference and then it is up to someone else to show how you are wrong.  

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

And not to stir the pot because I don't want to get into it now, that is the problem I have with Peirce and his "signs".  I don't want to say that the sign "points to" anything- which presupposes there are there IS "some-thing" to be pointed to and by implication that brings in dualism.  Clark insists that this is not the case at all, but I just cannot see that as NOT dualism.

I won't go too far but not all signs need to refer. I'd go farther though. Let me quote Derrida instead of Peirce here since we're discussing Nietzsche. (In many ways Derrida's phenomenology is a kind of mix of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Peirce)

Quote

Peirce goes very far in the direction that I have called the deconstruction of the transcendental signified, which, at one time or another, would place a reassuring end to the reference from sign to sign. I have identified logocentrism and the metaphysics of presence as the exigent, powerful, systematic, and irrepressible desire for such a signified. Now Peirce considers the indefiniteness of reference as the criterion that allows us to recognize that we are indeed dealing with a system of signs. What broaches the movement of signification is what makes its interruption impossible. The thing itself is a sign. An unacceptable proposition for Husserl, whose phenomenology remains therefore—in its “principle of principles”—the most radical and most critical restoration of the metaphysics of presence. The difference between Husserl’s and Peirce’s phenomenologies is fundamental since it concerns the concept of the sign and of the manifestation of presence, the relationships between the re-presentation and the originary presentation of the thing itself (truth). On this point Peirce is undoubtedly closer to the inventor of the word phenomenology: Lambert proposed in fact to “reduce the theory of things to the theory of signs.” Ac-ording to the “phaneoroscopy” or “phenomenology” of Peirce, manifestation itself does not reveal a presence, it makes a sign. One may read in the Principle of Phenomenology that “the idea of manifestation is the idea of a sign.” There is thus no phenomenality reducing the sign or the representer so that the thing signified may be allowed to glow finally in the luminosity of its presence. The so-called “thing itself” is always already a representamen shielded from the simplicity of intuitive evidence. The representamen functions only by giving rise to an interpretant that itself becomes a sign and so on to infinity. The self-identity of the signified conceals itself unceasingly and is always on the move. The property of the representamen is to be itself and another, to be produced as a structure of reference, to be separated from itself. The property of the representamen is not to be proper [propre], that is to say absolutely proximate to itself (prope, proprius). The represented is always already a representamen.  

He then quotes Peirce

Quote

Anything which determines something else (its interpretant) to refer to an object to which itself refers (its object) in the same way, this interpretant becoming in turn a sign, and so on ad infinitum. . . . If the series of successive interpretants comes to an end, the sign is thereby rendered imperfect 

He concludes

Quote

From the moment that there is meaning there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs. Which amounts to ruining the notion of the sign at the very moment when, as in Nietzsche, its exigency is recognized in the absoluteness of its right. One could call play the absence of the transcendental signified as limitlessness of play, that is to say as the destruction of onto- theology and the metaphysics of presence. It is not surprising that the shock, shaping and undermining metaphysics since its origin, lets itself be named as such in the period when, refusing to bind linguistics to semantics (which all European linguists, from Saussure to Hjemslev, still do), expelling the problem of meaning outside of their researches, certain American linguists constantly refer to the model of a game. Here one must think of writing as a game within language. 

I figured you'd like the nod to Wittgenstein in the midst of Nietzsche. And the point of Nietzsche he raises is precisely the place in Twilight of the Idols that we were discussing. That is when we banish both the "truth" and "the apparent" what is left? Only the play of signs.

Edited July 6, 2017 by clarkgoble

[USU78]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Excellent points- I had never seen the Plan of Salvation as an allegory for human life back to the womb as a parallel for pre-earth life!  I kind of started with Adam and a fall from innocence but those are great points.

Clearly it starts with D&C 89:18

You cannot get closer to the importance of "health in the navel" than in the womb!

This whole notion of "true worlds" to me though is pure metaphysics ( a bad word! ) to me even "chairs and tables" are human constructs, they are names for an object's function in our lives.  Hiking, a rock can make a perfect chair and we might even call it that.  For me "things as they are" are pure human experience, the qualum of the color red, the sound of a trumpet- but even calling them by the names "red" or "the sound of a trumpet" is a step removed from those qualia.

And so I see what are called dreams and visions, as qualia themselves, are not particularly removed from the qualia of chairs and tables.  Taking all of these are raw experiences AS experiences and ripping them out of their contexts and attempting to represent them as squiggles as a page is simply absurd.  The letters R-E-D do not even contain any of the qualum of red and so cannot ever "represent" that experience, though we understand what the word means since we also have had the experience ourselves and know it by name.  I am no more my name that the qualum named by "red" is its name.

And so personal revelation is direct experience and is the only path to "things as they are" but indeed every moment of our lives we are immersed in direct experiences of one kind or another experiencing "the world" directly.  

And not to stir the pot because I don't want to get into it now, that is the problem I have with Peirce and his "signs".  I don't want to say that the sign "points to" anything- which presupposes there are there IS "some-thing" to be pointed to and by implication that brings in dualism.  Clark insists that this is not the case at all, but I just cannot see that as NOT dualism.

But this is where Clark and I differ, which I have pointed out before, is a very tiny disagreement in the big picture. 

So the question is if I am the closet dualist for making the break between language and direct experience.  If so I plead guilty because to me it is abundantly clear that the word "red" IS NOT what I mean by the word.  Explain the color to a blind man or the sound to someone deaf, when either of those people can use the word perfectly well without having experienced it, and it will be clear that there is a gap between language and experience.

So if that is a "true world" explanation so be it.  If that is the case, virtually every philosopher in the twentieth century is a dualist and the Rorty quote below also exemplifies dualism in separating causes outside of mental states with causes within mental states.

Good luck with that assertion.

And even if this is "seen as" dualism, there is always the other picture of the rabbit duck that sees it the other way, so either way I am "safe".  I can easily just adopt the Rorty view as he sees it and still cobble together a view that works.

In philosophy all you have to do is create a distinction to save yourself.  That's the good and the bad news in dealing in language.

That goes back to Aristotle.

Make a distinction and show a difference and then it is up to someone else to show how you are wrong.  

 

Aristotle and Plato.

The Ding an sich  ...  how useful is it really to conceptualize such things?  As you keep saying, is the western sky at sundown any less beautiful during wildfire season because we hold an ideal conception of skies and colors and shapes in our minds?  Or because we know all the names of all the colors and shapes?

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I won't go too far but not all signs need to refer. I'd go farther though. Let me quote Derrida instead of Peirce here since we're discussing Nietzsche. (In many ways Derrida's phenomenology is a kind of mix of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Peirce)

He then quotes Peirce

He concludes

I figured you'd like the nod to Wittgenstein in the midst of Nietzsche. And the point of Nietzsche he raises is precisely the place in Twilight of the Idols that we were discussing. That is when we banish both the "truth" and "the apparent" what is left? Only the play of signs.

Absolutely fabulous that you dug these out, I was discussing spieltrieb and Schiller with USU on another thread, and he will flip out!

I understand Peirce much better, thanks.

Perhaps I am saying play is the direct unmediated experience, prelinguistic and before interpretation and that is where visions lie by analogy. 

One does not think linguistically in, say, sports. One sees the ball and swings wordlessly. One drives a car involved in other thoughts. One runs from a bear wordlessly. I can pronounce a memorized script repeatedly in a ritual, totally unaware of what my mouth is doing, and if I get tripped up I have no idea where my mouth left off.

All thought us definitely not linguistic .

Visions and dreams may be linguistic or not, so too with spiritual experience 

Edited July 6, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

39 minutes ago, USU78 said:

Aristotle and Plato.

The Ding an sich  ...  how useful is it really to conceptualize such things?  As you keep saying, is the western sky at sundown any less beautiful during wildfire season because we hold an ideal conception of skies and colors and shapes in our minds?  Or because we know all the names of all the colors and shapes?

Exactimundo, mein Herr!

[USU78]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I won't go too far but not all signs need to refer. I'd go farther though. Let me quote Derrida instead of Peirce here since we're discussing Nietzsche. (In many ways Derrida's phenomenology is a kind of mix of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Peirce)

He then quotes Peirce

He concludes

I figured you'd like the nod to Wittgenstein in the midst of Nietzsche. And the point of Nietzsche he raises is precisely the place in Twilight of the Idols that we were discussing. That is when we banish both the "truth" and "the apparent" what is left? Only the play of signs.

Could you please expand on this:

Quote

From the moment that there is meaning there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs. Which amounts to ruining the notion of the sign at the very moment when, as in Nietzsche, its exigency is recognized in the absoluteness of its right. One could call play the absence of the transcendental signified as limitlessness of play, that is to say as the destruction of onto- theology and the metaphysics of presence. It is not surprising that the shock, shaping and undermining metaphysics since its origin, lets itself be named as such in the period when, refusing to bind linguistics to semantics (which all European linguists, from Saussure to Hjemslev, still do), expelling the problem of meaning outside of their researches, certain American linguists constantly refer to the model of a game. Here one must think of writing as a game within language.

 I'm struggling with how play figures here.  He absolutely lost me and I want to get this right.

[USU78]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Excellent points- I had never seen the Plan of Salvation as an allegory for human life back to the womb as a parallel for pre-earth life!  I kind of started with Adam and a fall from innocence but those are great points.

Clearly it starts with D&C 89:18

You cannot get closer to the importance of "health in the navel" than in the womb!

This whole notion of "true worlds" to me though is pure metaphysics ( a bad word! ) to me even "chairs and tables" are human constructs, they are names for an object's function in our lives.  Hiking, a rock can make a perfect chair and we might even call it that.  For me "things as they are" are pure human experience, the qualum of the color red, the sound of a trumpet- but even calling them by the names "red" or "the sound of a trumpet" is a step removed from those qualia.

And so I see what are called dreams and visions, as qualia themselves, are not particularly removed from the qualia of chairs and tables.  Taking all of these are raw experiences AS experiences and ripping them out of their contexts and attempting to represent them as squiggles as a page is simply absurd.  The letters R-E-D do not even contain any of the qualum of red and so cannot ever "represent" that experience, though we understand what the word means since we also have had the experience ourselves and know it by name.  I am no more my name that the qualum named by "red" is its name.

And so personal revelation is direct experience and is the only path to "things as they are" but indeed every moment of our lives we are immersed in direct experiences of one kind or another experiencing "the world" directly.  

And not to stir the pot because I don't want to get into it now, that is the problem I have with Peirce and his "signs".  I don't want to say that the sign "points to" anything- which presupposes there are there IS "some-thing" to be pointed to and by implication that brings in dualism.  Clark insists that this is not the case at all, but I just cannot see that as NOT dualism.

But this is where Clark and I differ, which I have pointed out before, is a very tiny disagreement in the big picture. 

So the question is if I am the closet dualist for making the break between language and direct experience.  If so I plead guilty because to me it is abundantly clear that the word "red" IS NOT what I mean by the word.  Explain the color to a blind man or the sound to someone deaf, when either of those people can use the word perfectly well without having experienced it, and it will be clear that there is a gap between language and experience.

So if that is a "true world" explanation so be it.  If that is the case, virtually every philosopher in the twentieth century is a dualist and the Rorty quote below also exemplifies dualism in separating causes outside of mental states with causes within mental states.

Good luck with that assertion.

And even if this is "seen as" dualism, there is always the other picture of the rabbit duck that sees it the other way, so either way I am "safe".  I can easily just adopt the Rorty view as he sees it and still cobble together a view that works.

In philosophy all you have to do is create a distinction to save yourself.  That's the good and the bad news in dealing in language.

That goes back to Aristotle.

Make a distinction and show a difference and then it is up to someone else to show how you are wrong.  

 

Maybe you could help me, too.  Just how is it useful to break things down into a tripartite phenomenon of sign, cause and interpretation/translation?  It's awfully muddled, to my way of thinking, and doesn't appear to shed any light on the already-quite-clear name for the Ding-an-sich and the Ding-an-sich as experienced by a human upon observing the Ding itself.

USU "Ding!  Ding!  Ding!" 78

[MiserereNobis]

I haven't read much of the thread since the first page or so, but I will share this highly relevant story.

Years ago, when I was an undergraduate, I was shopping at the local food co-op. When I came out, there was a very cute girl reading a book at one of the tables outside. Her long dark hair, blue eyes, embroidered linen shirt, and flowy skirt meant that I definitely took a look at what the book was. Thus Spoke Zarathustra! Since I was double-majoring in philosophy and literature, I of course had to comment (not because she was pretty, mind you...). I said something witty like, "oh, Nietzsche." She looked up and said, "you pronounced his name correctly!" One thing led to another, I got her number, and we went on a date.

Moral of the story: if you don't know how to pronounce his name, look it up right now. It could be the difference between sitting at home alone or drinking red wine with a hot hippie chick who is into philosophy.

(Ok, we only had that one date, but still...)

 

Edited July 6, 2017 by MiserereNobis

[MiserereNobis]

11 hours ago, stemelbow said:

I liked reading from him.  he spoke to me.  But what pissed me off, after years of me reading him and reading about him I had been pronouncing his name embarrassingly wrong.  I probably at different times sounded off telling people some idea he shared with me, using his name, coming off all ignorant to the listener as I mispronounced his name.  Ah well...I was probably already an embarrassment to these folks, as I come off as a big old embarrassment in all situations in life. 

Aha! I hadn't even read this when I made my post. No wine with hot hippie chick for you, my friend!

[MiserereNobis]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

If you want to sound cool use the German pronunciation which is for all practical purposes "Neet-sha"

Man, and here I thought my story was going to be a total derail...

Quote

I remember going crazy looking at a map for "Prague" when the only thing that matched the co-ordinates was "Praha"

Ah, lovely Praha. The Czechs are slightly upset that the German name for their city is what made it into English, especially given their rocky history with Germans.

In Czech, a German is "Němec" which literally means "a mute"... the old Slavics didn't have a high opinion of the German language and figured the people speaking it really weren't speaking a language at all. Germany is "Německo" which means "the land of the mutes."

Edited July 6, 2017 by MiserereNobis

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, MiserereNobis said:

Man, and here I thought my story was going to be a total derail...

Ah, lovely Praha. The Czechs are slightly upset that the German name for their city is what made it into English, especially given their rocky history with Germans.

In Czech, a German is "Němec" which literally means "a mute"... the old Slavics didn't have a high opinion of the German language and figured the people speaking it really weren't speaking a language at all. Germany is "Německo" which means "the land of the mutes."

The Poles are not exactly fans of Germans either.

What a deal, stuck between Russia and Germany in a country flat as a pancake!

The tanks go east, and then west, but the people stay the same, Catholic and Polish.

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, USU78 said:

Could you please expand on this:

 I'm struggling with how play figures here.  He absolutely lost me and I want to get this right.

Oh, that's harder to explain than it seems. I was writing more for Mark who is a little more familiar with those ideas. Derrida's actually a fairly difficult philosopher to get up to speed with - at least in his early work - due to his drawing so carefully on prior philosophers. While there's a few papers I'll suggest of Derrida for people not as well versed in philosophy, this one On Grammatology is pretty difficult. It pretty well presupposes some exposure to semiotics, Nietzsche and especially Husserl. (A lot of the criticism is indirectly about the formal phenomenology of Husserl) Really a lot of familiar with Heidegger is strongly helpful as well. For the second half a lot of Rousseau and company is necessary as well. Derrida often writes assuming you have a pretty strong grounding in the classics of philosophy. When people read him without it they often misread him (as is so common in English departments which leads to the postmodern readings of Derrida)

For Derrida there's a certain undecidability with a sign. We often think of signs in terms of an author that has absolute control over the sign or an end point to the sign - it's final interpretant which is the goal to which it is converging. Derrida doesn't really do away with those notions but he heavily problematizes them. At any point what the sign signifies is underdetermined because the sign, to be a sign, but function without the presence of the author to exert control or its end. Effectively what Derrida is doing is looking very carefully at how the sign in its ideal form demands a certain infinite determination that connects absolutely the author to the intended signification. Yet the logic of the sign (and this is where he makes use of Peirce) is always caught up within a certain arbitrariness. The sign is tied to its object or starting point only by a guess. The ending point of the sign is always unknown in an absolute sense. We can only say what it means now and talk about what choices we have as we draw out its inferences.

Effectively traditional portrayals of signs saw it as a kind of dualism. Object : Meaning. Derrida, drawing on Peirce, sees signs as pure mediation. They're always in process. They're never complete. That means the meaning we take them as having can always be undermined. Not only that but when we only have a segment of the overall sign process from object to final interpretant we lose the firm ground that both give us. They unmoor the sign. Derrida talks about this and not having presence. What he means by that is something absolute that controls the flow of the sign whether it being the object itself, the final idealize meaning or the author in some idealized fashion. All are absent. By moving to a logic of meditation rather than presence you end up with play.

Now I'm sure that's not a great description. I did a Google and none of the ones I found were much better. The basic idea is that in interpretations we lose certainty and as well as the very things that would stabilize the process of interpretation. 

Personally I think you end up with a much better explanation of everything by studying Peirce's semiotics. While I appreciate Derrida, in some ways he intentionally makes things more complex than they need to be. Part of that is because he's making what are called immanent critiques. That is he's using the logic and ideas of a particular author to undermine the conclusions of the author. Or, for Derrida, more often to point at something the author misses. However the effect of this is to make things pretty complicated.

The simplest way to think about it is to simply think about what in a sign is missing. If I talk about any object, what is missing in that discussion? How does what is missing affect the overall logic of the discussion? Effectively what he is doing is emphasizing a logic of absence. In Peirce this is a logic of vagueness. 

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

When people read him without it they often misread him (as is so common in English departments which leads to the postmodern readings of Derrida)

I was an English major, and this is SO true...

Derrida was so twisted and contorted into what they wanted him to mean. Poor guy

 

[USU78]

6 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Oh, that's harder to explain than it seems. I was writing more for Mark who is a little more familiar with those ideas. Derrida's actually a fairly difficult philosopher to get up to speed with - at least in his early work - due to his drawing so carefully on prior philosophers. While there's a few papers I'll suggest of Derrida for people not as well versed in philosophy, this one On Grammatology is pretty difficult. It pretty well presupposes some exposure to semiotics, Nietzsche and especially Husserl. (A lot of the criticism is indirectly about the formal phenomenology of Husserl) Really a lot of familiar with Heidegger is strongly helpful as well. For the second half a lot of Rousseau and company is necessary as well. Derrida often writes assuming you have a pretty strong grounding in the classics of philosophy. When people read him without it they often misread him (as is so common in English departments which leads to the postmodern readings of Derrida)

For Derrida there's a certain undecidability with a sign. We often think of signs in terms of an author that has absolute control over the sign or an end point to the sign - it's final interpretant which is the goal to which it is converging. Derrida doesn't really do away with those notions but he heavily problematizes them. At any point what the sign signifies is underdetermined because the sign, to be a sign, but function without the presence of the author to exert control or its end. Effectively what Derrida is doing is looking very carefully at how the sign in its ideal form demands a certain infinite determination that connects absolutely the author to the intended signification. Yet the logic of the sign (and this is where he makes use of Peirce) is always caught up within a certain arbitrariness. The sign is tied to its object or starting point only by a guess. The ending point of the sign is always unknown in an absolute sense. We can only say what it means now and talk about what choices we have as we draw out its inferences.

Effectively traditional portrayals of signs saw it as a kind of dualism. Object : Meaning. Derrida, drawing on Peirce, sees signs as pure mediation. They're always in process. They're never complete. That means the meaning we take them as having can always be undermined. Not only that but when we only have a segment of the overall sign process from object to final interpretant we lose the firm ground that both give us. They unmoor the sign. Derrida talks about this and not having presence. What he means by that is something absolute that controls the flow of the sign whether it being the object itself, the final idealize meaning or the author in some idealized fashion. All are absent. By moving to a logic of meditation rather than presence you end up with play.

Now I'm sure that's not a great description. I did a Google and none of the ones I found were much better. The basic idea is that in interpretations we lose certainty and as well as the very things that would stabilize the process of interpretation. 

Personally I think you end up with a much better explanation of everything by studying Peirce's semiotics. While I appreciate Derrida, in some ways he intentionally makes things more complex than they need to be. Part of that is because he's making what are called immanent critiques. That is he's using the logic and ideas of a particular author to undermine the conclusions of the author. Or, for Derrida, more often to point at something the author misses. However the effect of this is to make things pretty complicated.

The simplest way to think about it is to simply think about what in a sign is missing. If I talk about any object, what is missing in that discussion? How does what is missing affect the overall logic of the discussion? Effectively what he is doing is emphasizing a logic of absence. In Peirce this is a logic of vagueness. 

Thank you. I need to think about this for a bit. Because doesn't every person get to interpret every sign in accordance with his particular sum of experiences, resulting necessarily in a muddle? Is this where Mark jumps up and runs screaming into the night?