Word Things

Keith W. Faulkner. Deleuze and the three syntheses of time argues

Words become symbols; language is symbolic: although words are not things, and things are not words, the principle of reality applies to them both as if words enjoy the same reality as things.

and this is how the argument is set up

How can language acquire a "reality" if it remains outside the realm of objects? As we have seen, the indication of reality accompanies a psychical discharge. While eating, the mouth and the stomach produce a discharge signaling the reality of food; while speaking, a physical discharge occurs in the mouth signaling the reality of language. In this process, as in the process of hysterical symbol-formation, the symbol completely replaces the thing.

The question arises that if words can be considered to be like things, how can things be like words? The key may be in approaching words and things as "events."

One need not revert to a theory of signatures or a reification of symbols, one can sense the pressure of a thing upon its environment much as one can sense the energy of words.

And so for day 463
20.03.2008

See also day 65