Table Of Content

ALSO PUBLISHED BY G 2 Richard Gaskin was educated at the OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and S London, held a Lectureship in philosophy The Unity of the Proposition K at the University of Sussex from 1991 to Richard Gaskin I 1997, and then a Readership from 1997 until N 2001, when he moved to his current post as Aesthetic Essays Professor of Philosophy at the University of Malcolm Budd According to the literary humanist, works of imaginative literature have an L Liverpool. He has held visiting fellowships LA NGUAGE, TRUTH, objective meaning which is fi xed at the time of their production and which A at the Universities of Bonn, Edinburgh, Philosophy and the Novel is the same for all readers, then and thereafter, not subject to the vagaries and Mainz. Alan Goldman N of individual readers’ responses. Such works refer to the real world and make G LITERATURE statements about that world which are of cognitive as well as aesthetic value; Narratives and Narrators AND A Philosophy of Stories the two kinds of value are indeed intimately connected. Richard Gaskin U offers a defence of literary humanism, so understood, against assault from two Gregory Currie A directions. On the one hand, some analytic aestheticians have argued that A Defence of Literary Humanism G Fiction and the Weave of Life works of literature do not bear referentially on the world and do not make true John Gibson statements about it; others hold that such works do not make a contribution E to knowledge; others again allow that works of literature may have cognitive , value, but deny that this depends on their having truth or reference. On the T other hand, reception-theorists and deconstructionists have rejected the R humanist’s objectivist conception of literary meaning, and typically take U a pragmatist and anti-realist approach to truth and meaning. This latter, T poststructuralist treatment of literature has often been accompanied by a H radical politicization of its study. In defending literary humanism against these various forms of attack, Gaskin shows that the reading and appreciation , of literature is a cognitive activity fully on a par with scientifi c investigation, A N and that we can and should engage in it disinterestedly for the sake of what D can be learnt about the world and our place in it. L Richard Gaskin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. I T E R Jacket image: Children decorating a conscript’s hat, 1854, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller/museumstock. A T U R E 2 ISBN978-0-19-965790-2 1 RICHARD GASKIN 9 780199 657902 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi LANGUAGE, TRUTH, AND LITERATURE OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi LANGUAGE, TRUTH, AND LITERATURE a defence of literary humanism R I C H A R D G A S K I N 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,ox26dp, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries #RichardGaskin2013 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2013 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable ISBN 978–0–19–965790–2 PrintedinGreatBritainby MPGBooksGroup,BodminandKing’sLynn OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi Contents Preface viii 1. Language, Text, and World 1 1 Thecontextprinciple 1 2 Meaninganditsvarieties 3 3 Linguisticidealism,realism,andpragmatism 7 4 Linguisticidealismandmodernism 11 5 Textandworld 15 2. Literature, Fact, and Fiction 22 6 Humanismandvalue 22 7 Thedefinitionofaworkofliterature(I) 26 8 Textandwork 28 9 Thedefinitionofaworkofliterature(II) 32 10 Literatureandfiction 36 11 Literatureandfact:autobiography 39 12 Literatureandfact:propernames,generalterms,and incompleteness 44 13 Fictionaldiscourseanddiscourseaboutthefiction 51 14 Fictionanduniversals 57 3. Literary Humanism: Sense, Reference, and Knowledge 63 15 Apreliminarydefinitionofliteraryhumanism 63 16 Senseandreference 68 17 Senseandineffability 76 18 Workandparaphrase 81 19 Sentences,nounphrases,andassertion 94 20 Literature,paraphrase,andknowledge 96 21 Knowledgeofreference,knowledgeofsense 105 22 Readingandrereading 112 4. Literary Humanism: Analytical Objections and Responses 118 23 Propositionalandnon-propositionalknowledge 118 24 Referenceandcognitivevalue 122 25 Truthandaestheticvalue 131 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi vi contents 26 Co-assertibilityandcontradiction(I) 142 27 Co-assertibilityandcontradiction(II) 146 5. Reception Theory and Meaning 154 28 Introduction 154 29 JudgingHoratiandelights 156 30 KillingClaggart 162 31 UntanglingNeaera’shair 166 32 Receptiontheoryandmisunderstanding 170 33 Thestatusofawork’soriginalmeaning 174 6. Literature and Ambiguity 183 34 Ambiguityandcontradiction:syntax 183 35 Ambiguityandcontradiction:semantics 186 36 Ambiguityandchangeofmeaning 194 37 Alanguagenottobebetrayed 204 7. The Status of Authorial Intentions 211 38 Interpretationandthehermeneuticcircle 211 39 Theintentionalfallacy 216 40 Authorialintentionsandprivacy 225 41 Intentionstomeanandintentionstodo 228 42 Intentionandallusion 235 8. Deconstruction and Meaning 239 43 Linguisticidealismandthesignifier–signifieddistinction 239 44 Understandingandsemioticreplacement 243 45 Mentionanduse 246 46 Privacyanddialogue 250 47 Establishingthetext 254 48 Thehermeneuticcirclerevisited 259 9. Deconstruction and Pragmatism 261 49 Deconstructionandthe‘anything goes’accusation 261 50 Deconstructionandrulefollowing 268 51 Deconstructionandtranscendentalism 271 52 Ontryingtobeinsideandoutsidethelanguagegame atthesametime 278 10. Literary Language, Science, and the World 284 53 Literarylanguageandtheworld 284 54 Literatureandscience 290 55 Metaphorandreference 295 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi contents vii 11. Form, Content, and Ideology 304 56 Introduction 304 57 Keatsandtheecocritics 306 58 ThepoliticizationofEdwardThomas 310 59 Shakespeareandpolitics 315 60 Parodyandsatire 319 61 Form,content,andtheCratylusfallacy 324 12. Ideology and Literary Humanism 328 62 Poststructuralism,deconstruction,andlinguisticidealism 328 63 Literarytheoryandintellectualstandards 334 64 Literaryhumanismandpolitics 340 References 349 Index 371 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi Preface The expression ‘literary humanism’ carries a significant evaluative payload in contemporary discussions of literature. Sometimes the label is worn as a badgeofhonour;moreoften,perhaps,itfiguresasatermofabuse.Butwhat istheobjectofthissupportorhostility?Anyonewhoengagesseriouslywith literary theory and the philosophy of literature will quickly discover that, thoughcommentatorsarewillingenoughtousethephrase‘literaryhuman- ism’, it is very hard to find an authoritative statement of what the name actually denotes. Literary critics and theorists may be happy enough to tolerate that kind of vagueness in their key terms, but philosophers yearn for exactitude—oratleast for asmuchexactitudeas thesubjectmatterwill allow,asAristotleputit.Thisbookismyattempttogivebothprecisionand plausibility to the doctrine of literary humanism, in the first place by associating it definitionally with a specific group of theses about the nature andeffectofwhatwecall‘creative’or‘imaginative’literature,andsecondly bydefendingthepositionthusdefinedagainstsomeofthemoreimportant forms of attack to which it has been subjected by aestheticians and literary theorists in recent decades. My literary humanist asserts that works of literature have a determinate, objectivemeaning,fixedatthetimeoftheirproduction,thattheymayhave a cognitive value which is part and parcel of their aesthetic value, and that their having cognitive and aesthetic value, if they do have it, depends essentially on their referring to, and making true statements about, the world. Analytic philosophers who attack literary humanism, so defined, are usually aestheticians or philosophers of language who may be broadly sympathetic to the humanist tradition, but who reject one or more of the theseswhichIassociatewiththattradition:forexample,theymightsaythat creative literature does not have cognitive value; or that it does have it but not by dint of referring to and making true statements about the world; or thatwhileaworkofliteraturemayindeedrefertoandmaketruestatements about the world, that achievement is incidental to its having genuine OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,7/2/2013,SPi preface ix cognitive or aesthetic value. I shall seek to ward off these philosophers’ attacks, and undermine the alternatives they offer to literary humanism as Idefineit.Thattaskwilloccupymyfirstfourchapters.Ishallthenmoveon to defend literary humanism against the onslaught of those commentators from outside the analytic tradition—in particular, reception theorists and deconstructionists—whoeitherrepudiatethewholeideathatliteraryworks have a determinate and objective meaning or who, while accepting that such works may indeed have that kind of meaning, reject the humanist’s assertionthatawork’smeaningisfixed,atthetimeofitsproduction,forall its contemporary and later readers and spectators. I conceive this book as being, in the main, a philosophical treatise. Considerable use is made of literary examples, and I have tried to deploy my examples in such a way as to provide a linkage from one theme to the next: so the reader will find that I draw on some authors repeatedly, and sometimes discuss these authors in detail. But the literary agenda is subor- dinatetothephilosophical.ItisforthisreasonthatIhavemadesomuchof thethesisoflinguisticidealism,whichisexpoundedinmyfirstchapterand thenrecursatvariouspointsthroughoutthebook.Irelyonthisdoctrinefor the following reasons. First, it is one of my intellectual ambitions to convince the philosophical public of its truth: the present study takes its place alongside my earlier books Experience and the World’s Own Language andThe Unityof theProposition, in whichI beganon a defenceof linguistic idealism, and is offered as a further (but still partial) adumbration of my favouredtheoryoftherelationbetweenlanguageandtheworld.Ihopein due course to complete the argument for linguistic idealism—I had better add: insofar as an argument can ever be completed in philosophy—in a separate work dedicated to that subject. Secondly, in defending literary humanism, and in examining the bearing that works of literature have on the world, I cannot avoid setting the discussion in the context of the metaphysical position concerning the relation between language and the world that I believe to be true. Thirdly, I spend a considerable amount of timeinthebookattackingcertainmanifestationsofmodernliterarytheory, andinparticularreceptionismanddeconstruction;itwouldbedisingenuous ofmenottoprovidethereaderwithaserioustheoreticalalternativetothese rejected doctrines. Fourthly, it would be impossible to do so: for one can only rejectasubstantialmetaphysicalposition—andboth receptionismand deconstruction are, for all their faults, such positions—on the basis of an appeal to what one takes to be the truth. It follows that my defence of