< previous page page_2 next page >

Page 2
semiosis, and every written (or spoken) text is seen as a machine that produces an indefinite deferral. Those contemporary theories object indirectly to Wilkins that a text, once it is separated from its utterer (as well as from the utterer's intention) and from the concrete circumstances of its utterance (and by consequence from its intended referent) floats (so to speak) in the vacuum of a potentially infinite range of possible interpretations. As a consequence no text can be interpreted according to the utopia of a definite, original, and final authorized meaning. Language always says more than its unattainable literal meaning, which is lost from the very beginning of the textual utterance.
Bishop Wilkinsdespite his adamant belief that the Moon is inhabitedwas after all a man of remarkable intellectual stature, who said many things still important for the students of language and of semiosic processes in general. Look, for instance, at the drawing shown here, which appears in his Essay towards a Real Character (1668). Wilkins was so convinced that a theory of meaning was possible that he even tried (not first, but certainly in a pioneering way and by an extraordinary visual intuition) to provide a way to represent the meaning of syncategorematic terms. This picture shows that, provided we share some conventional rules concerning English language, when we say upon we surely mean something different from under. By the way, the picture shows also that such a difference in meaning is based on the structure of our body in a geo-astronomical space. One can be radically skeptical about the possibility of isolating universals of language, but one feels obliged to take Wilkins's picture seriously. It shows that in interpreting syncategorematic terms we must follow certain "directions." Even if the world were a labyrinth, we could pass through it by disregarding certain directional constraints.
How could Wilkins have objected to the counterobjections of many contemporary theories of reading as a deconstructive activity? Probably he would have said that in the case he was reporting (let us suppose that the letter was saying "Dear Friend, In this Basket brought by my Slave there are 30 Figs I send you as a Present. Looking forward . . . ") the Master was sure that the Basket mentioned in the Letter was the one carried by the Slave, that the carrying Slave was exactly the one to whom his Friend gave the Basket, and that there was a Relationship between the Expression 30 written in the Letter and the Number of Figs contained in the Basket.
Naturally, it would be easy to refute Wilkins's parabolic demonstration. It is sufficient to imagine that somebody really did send a slave with a basket, but along the way the original slave was killed and re-

 
< previous page page_2 next page >