Table Of ContentALSO 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
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Jacket image: Children decorating a conscript’s hat, 1854, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller/museumstock. A
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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,
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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
