This blog provides a space to explore ideas in a rich and playful way. I bring to these explorations my experience with dedicated philosophical and literary study. I also invite you to join me in these explorations, and together we may enrich each others lives and empower one another with a whole new meaning. Meaning is not something stagnant or steady like a definition of a word, but is always flowing and growing: it's alive.
The phrase "philosophizing with a hammer" comes from Friedrich Nietzsche's book, Twilight of the Idols: How to Philosophize With a Hammer. In the preface of that book, Nietzsche speaks of such a hammer being used for lightly tapping "idols, which are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork." He wanted to sound out those concepts that people had held up as being eternal (what he refers to as idols), and his intent is to reveal the hollowness within them. The gentle hammer tap is a metaphor for careful inspection and listening as one does when tuning musical instruments. And so my intent is to listen carefully to the sound and let the concepts I explore resonate their respective tones, giving them space and attention. We may use the analogy of idolatry to refer to the assumption that some concepts are eternal and represent eternal meanings. It is similar to the way people might worship mere statues, believing them to be more than they are. The forms of our words and the concepts they represent are always fleeting and ever shifting.
The phrase "semiotic explorations" is what I call this blog, because it is not expository in the sense of making any argument that attempts to convince anyone, nor is it relegated to only questioning without coming to any conclusions. Exploring is finding out what it's like in unfamiliar territory, like when we poke around in the woods or walk down a street we've never taken before. The origin of the word "explore" comes from the Latin word "explorare," which literally translates to "to cry out". It can also be interpreted as coming from the root "pleure," which means "to flow". I might say that in these writings I am using my written voice to, in a sense, call out, and see what responds. Perhaps, then, the voice of a writer such as myself can function like the hammer used as a tuning fork. I might also say that I am letting concepts that would otherwise lie frozen flow, and thus come alive again. While it's interesting to think of things etymologically, and telling you about the origin of the word may enrich its meaningfulness to you, the actual way I use it for the title of this blog isn't exactly intended to mean anything so complicated or archaic. When I say the posts in this blog are "explorations," I really just mean that what we are doing here is exploring in our typical sense of the word, in all its sense of adventure and fun.
I have found through my explorations that all concepts are, in a sense, hollow. The metaphor of an idol could be extended to any concept that is taken for being real in itself, not just the most revered ones. Our concepts are not full of any certain essence, but are hollow and always ready to be filled however someone wishes them to be filled, existing in the moment and borne of the moment.
The term "semiotics" comes from the ancient Greek word "semeiotikos," which means "observant of signs." The semiotic perspective is that perspective which looks at signs. Every word, gesture, and at bottom every meaningful experience is in the semiotic perspective a sign that points one way or another. A semiotic exploration looks at these meanings and reveals their various possible interpretations, asking how and why each meaning means what it means.
I have come to think that "Philosophizing with a Hammer" is an appropriate title for these explorations. The exploring mind is the hammer that will be used to gently tap each word or meaningful experience here, allowing that word or experience to ring. Listening with a careful ear we find that anything we conceptualize and understand to mean something is in fact a manifold of different meanings wrapped up in different combinations, so that if we really let things ring out, we hear multiple tunes play at a time. Resounding together, we see how the different tones of these hollow concepts create a chorus, and don't just ring, they sing.
So let this exploration be a vivid explication of the inner chorus of every moment and meaning that is visited here. It is an exercise and a journey in listening. If we listen together, we find things ring out to reveal their inner songs. We might hear that each moment has more to offer than was thought at surface glance. For Plato says in the Phaedrus: “Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many." So here is a place to look and listen beyond first appearances. I wonder what we will reveal?
David Berger is an active speaker and published writer in Philosophy. He has a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Bachelor of English degree. He specializes in Semiotics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language, Analytic Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy (particularly Taoism and Zen Buddhism), Existential Phenomenology, Literary Theory and Criticism, and Ancient Mythology (particularly Greek).
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