Reading Ferdinand De Saussure’s “From Course in General Linguistic” was a difficult, confusing and an incomprehensive task. One simply does not read and expect to understand it; the dialogue he makes is a hard one to understand, for the words he chooses are very intellectual and often repetitions of the article has to be done to understand what he really means to say. For example, the dialogue Saussure makes and the relationship he elaborates between the signified and signifier becomes an open arena of criticism. First, he states that the atomic nucleus of language is the sign, “one formed by the associating of two terms” (963), the signified and the signifier. We can make an early premature assumption that the signified and the signifier really “unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (963). These two terms become a two sided psychological entity, one that involves [two elements that are intimately united as one] (964). These two terms or concepts are bonded together by nature; it is by an arbitrary order that they must stay together. The separation of these terms simply cannot exist; together they make a concept whole, if separation was to indeed exist between the two, the signified and signifier would simply become a noisy sound. The signifier ordinarily defines the signified. Saussure also implies that without these two terms, we would not be able to make a “clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas” (967). The world of language is made up of thoughts, sounds, structures and things that are formed in our minds psychologically first, even before we can verbally find their place. Therefore, it opens the window for the signified and signifier to become more connected internally and externally with each other when creating an idea. Saussure also goes to say that the arbitrariness of the signified and signifier cannot altered by the individual’s will, because the two terms are part of a broader science structure (Semiology Science), therefore the individual that interprets the sign cannot find any other symbol to interpret but the signifier itself. The signifier gives sound to the signified and the signified gives meaning to the signifier, period. If you ask me, I personally believe that Saussure is telling us “you cannot remove the Neutrons or the protons out of an Atom, because otherwise it won’t be an Atomic Nucleus” about the relationship between the signified and the signifier. Though, I must say I may need a better sense of understanding of the whole concept. The article was challenging to comprehend.

Everything we say is a lie. When you speak of something you are lying about a lie. We always repeat these lies because we love the deception. And now we do not even recognize the lies.

Now that you’ve taken the red pill, welcome to “Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense,” by Friedrich Nietzsche. The title clarifies that the truth and lying Nietzsche is about to discuss is amoral. The author makes this distinction because truth and lying are typically intentional pursuits. People are usually aware of telling, searching for, finding, and desiring truth, just as people are typically aware of the lies they disseminate. As such, a moral consequence is implied which punishes the liars. The lies Nietzsche refers to are ingrained in our language and intellect. We lie with our words because our words have no relation to the thing they represent. He says that words are just metaphors for what they represent. The only relationship between word and object is created by man’s intellect. In the perspective of the universe, what is created by man’s intellect has no value because of how arbitrary it is.

What’s interesting about Nietzsche’s paper, and what makes it a tad meta, is that he uses metaphors to explain why words are metaphors and lies to show readers that the human conception of an object, and the word that is subsequently created to describe the object, are actually levels of metaphor that get further away from what the “thing in itself” is. He uses the examples of a leaf and camel to show that in no way the word captures the essence of objects. They are just ways for humans to explain them in their experience of the world. Nietzsche would go as far as to say that the same is true of humans and the word human. All any one human is capable of knowing is within their self.

(On rocks) Nietzsche would say that the mental picture we have is the first metaphor. Just an image created through a stimulation of our nervous system. The second metaphor based on the first comes when we form our lips to make a name to call such an object. Similar to Socrates’ struggle to define virtue and find the difference between virtue and virtuous qualities, Nietzsche would say that our metaphors have observed and labeled qualities of an object before possessing knowledge of the rock in and of itself.

In Ferdinand De Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics he writes about the complexity of linguistics, language, and semiology. As I read this I was able to somewhat comprehend how to learn and study language. He describes it as “a system of signs that express ideas,” which I interpreted as language being a completely different entity from speech. I agree with this thought, language is far more complex than speech. Speech depends on charisma and pronunciation and the willpower to be clear, concise, and powerful. In contrast, to me language is all about the flow of the words, how they connect with one another, and how we may use them to convey thoughts and feelings that more often than not are hard to write down.

Saussure writes that there are four aspects of language. First, language is an object in the heterogenous mass of speech facts. It is the social side of speech that only exists within the community. Language is also something that can be studied separately, very much like a science. An example of this would be dead languages, which we are still able to examine their “linguistic organisms.” Third, language is defined as homogenous, which means it is a system of signs that bring together meanings and sound-images and both parts of the sign are psychological. Finally, language is concrete and matter-of-fact. 

Reading this made me realize that linguistics is a lot more complicated than I initially thought. For most of my life I only thought of linguistics as language, as something I wrote in order to express what I wished to say in a coherent manner. The fact that there are components to language described with the words homogenous and heterogenous, all of these complexities that I can only begin to comprehend tells me that I have much to learn.

Nietzsche’s essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” resonated with me because I’ve found myself considering what he discusses in his essay, but I was never able to articulate it myself (but thankfully he seems to have taken care of that for me, of course). I’ve often thought of what words are derived from and the connotations they carry beyond their definition. If words reflect concepts, they are inherently flawed and untruthful, as concepts are derived from human experience, which is inherently subjective; therefore, words and language alike cannot be considered absolute or objective, because they are filtered through subjective layers of understanding.

Therefore, it is impossible to know a thing in itself; The things we have words for will always escape our complete understanding, because humans created language and we are fundamentally incapable of comprehending and accessing wholly objective information. This particular point also lead me to wonder about how humans create the purpose of objects; for example, we have things that we refer to as “chairs”. For our human purposes, we sit in these things we call chairs, and we therefore have created the purpose of this object. But the object in itself, as something independent of its function for humans, as something objective and absolute, is not a chair, for we have ascribed this purpose to it.

I found the part of the essay in which Nietzsche describes what truth is to be the most fascinating. Up until this point, although I found what he had to say to be accurate, I thought he was going to conclude that because absolute truth is diluted and impossible to attain, all human pursuits to do so and find any reliable information or any truth were in vain, which would inevitably turn into nihilism– but when Nietzsche described truth as “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people”, I concluded that that quote would avert one from nihilism, and hopefully lead one to be fascinated by this laying of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms; this succinctly defined what I had considered to be truth for some time, and what I find fascinating about language.

I’ve found that Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics contains similar ideas to Nietzsche’s essay. In particular, when Saussure discusses how language is a system of signs that expresses ideas, I recalled Nietzsche’s idea of how words are formed from our conception of things in themselves, as the two ideas coincide very nicely. The idea of the sign as a double entity, composed of a sound image (signifier) and a sign (concept) seems very similar to Nietzsche’s theory. I have read some of Course in General Linguistics before, and I’m aware that Saussure was a pioneer of structural linguistics– something I found interesting about that aspect of Saussure’s work is the idea that words in languages are connected by their phonology and their morphology. For example, the words swam, swim, and swimming all come from the same root morpheme, making them inherently connected. I find it fascinating to see how all aspects of language are interrelated and how units of language like morphemes are joined with other morphemes to words with similar meanings but different purposes– for example, the word “carefully” is an adverb, “careful” is an adjective, and “care” is a noun or a verb. By subtracting or adding certain morphemes, the purpose of the word changes, but the meaning stays pretty much intact.

Saussure’s “Course in General Linguistics” as stated in the first line of the text, is written in attempts to define categorically and analytically “the characteristics of language” (850). After reading Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lying” which in essence completely destroys every notion of ‘reality’ one may have at one point placed in the meaning of language, it is interesting to read “Course in General Linguistics” which does not attempt to prove any innate ‘truths’ within the structure of language, and even states outright that “the linguistic sign is arbitrary” (854) meaning the bond of an idea behind a word, or in Saussure’s terms “the signified” together with the sound created to evoke that meaning, or “the signifier” is a bond of complete irrelevance. Instead, Saussure defines language as a science, and then proceeds to study it as such.

Saussure’s term for language within the realm of science is ‘semiology’ which he defines as “a science that studies the life of signs within a society” (851).   Although language is only one piece of the “general science of semiology,” Saussure sees language as the most important piece, for language is a “system of signs that express ideas” (851).  He emphasizes the importance of studying language and of ignoring the general public’s popular notion of language – which understands it as nothing more than a “name-giving system” (851). Saussure feels this notion of language will prohibit any valuable research into the “true nature” of language.

Saussure discusses what this “true nature” of language entails within the next section of “Course in General Linguistics.” He begins by stating why those who regard language as a naming process are so wrong: which is mainly because this stance assumes that “ready-made ideas exist before words” (852) which according is Saussure is not true. To Saussure, a linguistic sign unites only the “concept” and the “sound-image” which he defines as not an actual sound, but “the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes on our sense” (853). This idea of a psychological imprint of sound is a concept that I honestly think I only understand vaguely and abstractly, however I have come to the conclusion that the linguistic sign is undoubtedly so much more intricate than a simple naming device. As a “psychological entity” that is two sided and abstract, a single word becomes all the more subtly complex, especially within the confines of a sentence. Saussure continues to emphasize the dual complexity of meaning within a single word by comparing language “with a sheet of paper” (857). In this analogy sound is the front of the paper and thought is the back of the paper – one cannot cut the front without cutting the back, showing how thought and sound in language are inextricably linked together.

Understanding the ‘language’ of language is essential to writing in an affecting and coherent form, for if we do not understand the science behind what we are saying how will we ever say anything of value to society, or even begin to understand it? Saussure’s ‘science’ of language does a very intriguing job of analyzing and portraying just what language actually is, and why even though singular words may not have any inherent meaning unto themselves, they have great meaning and necessity to understanding the concepts and ideas that form human civilization.

In Nietzsche’s essay “On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense”, he outlines the construction of language and truth. He begins by telling the reader how insignificant the “human intellect looks within nature” and how this intellect or cognition gives us a sense of inflated worth that makes us feel superior (764-765). At first, he paints a grim picture of what the humans’ place in the world actually is and what their existence means. It seems to me that he goes on to detail how we are prone to give in to our basest inclinations when he says “humanity, in the indifference of its ignorance rests on the pitiless, the greedy, the insatiable, the murderous – clinging in dreams, as it were to the back of a tiger” (765). I’m unsure of what the tiger is referencing but it seems that humans are initially depicted as superficial beings who are blind to truth – not as it pertains to one particular thing – but of everything in general. One of the most important assertions that Nietzsche makes is that “[cognition’s] most general affect is deception” (765). This directly ties into just how humans are blind to truth in every facet of their lives and thinking processes.

Nietzsche starts to hint at his definition of truth as a constructed concept rather than the usually implied definition of an absolute. Truth is defined as the agreed upon designation of something (768). However, designations are described as baseless and varied and in consequence that makes it inaccurate. Being based on “deceptions” and “illusions” turns the concept of truth on its head and establishes it as it’s polar opposite – a lie.

The true definition of truth having been established, Nietzsche states that “the legislation of language also produces the first laws of truth” (766). This deceptive truth is inherent in language because the words and designation that make up language are drawn from our perceptions of things which are subjective. Nietzsche defines a word as the copy of a nervous stimulation in sounds” (766). However, this nervous stimulation is first processed then given a designation. He implies that these designations are imbedded with our own preferences that influence how they are described. For example a designation may have a social connotation or simply be “arbitrary” (766). He explicitly states that our perceptions of a thing can’t be separated from the actual thing itself. Therefore, it seems that he is saying that we can never really have a grasp on the truth of any thing or object but just a reconstruction of it (767). Nietzsche states, “[The human] designates only the relations of things to human beings, and in order to express them he avails himself of the boldest metaphors” (766). The best way that I can understand it relates the process of going from stimulation to words to a game of telephone where things are lost in translation and distorted. He describes our reconstructions as “anthropomorphic” because we re-create everything in our own likeness. We are firmly thrust into the role of the creators instead of the created when he describes humanity as “a mighty architectural genius who succeeds in erecting the infinitely complicated cathedral of concepts on moving foundations, or even, one might say, on flowing water” (769).

It seems that the underlying agenda behind all of the deceptions and illusions is the creation of order (768).  In my admittedly limited study of psychology, it is my understanding that the mind creates categories or frameworks – what Nietzsche refers to as schemas- in order to accommodate the vast amount of data that it is inundated with on a daily basis. In order to condense this information it makes generalizations, conflations and even stereotypes. These along with the metaphors Nietzsche speaks of appear to be necessary in order to have some semblance of organization. These metaphors are a way of making connections between various concepts and objects. I’m not sure that without this use of organization that human beings would be able to make sense of their environment or effectively survive within it. This is perhaps what Nietzsche is referring to when he says that human intellect was given to us as a tool for survival – being that we were “denied horns or the sharp fangs of a beast of prey with which to wage the struggle for existence” (765). It is precisely the uncanny skill of making order out of the chaos of innumerable “non-equivalent” things that helps us to survive.

Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics focuses on aspects of language that are generally overlooked and not discussed.  I found this “course” to be confusing at times but overall, enlightening.  Chapter V, titled “Syntagmatic and Associative Relations” focuses primarily on how words acquire relations.  Syntagmatic relations occur throughout discourse, or spoken language.  Saussure says, “In the syntagm a term acquires its value only because it stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows it, or to both (864).”  In other words, words obtain their relations with one another because of the way they are actually spoken together.  This “chain of speaking” as Saussure puts it follows a certain sequence.  While this general concept sounds simple, Saussure points out the objection that I myself had: “The sentence is the ideal type of syntagm.”  However, according to Saussure they are not, and it is at this point where I had difficulty with what Saussure is attempting to convey.  He explains that “the sentence” is a part of speaking alone, while syntagms are derived from spoken language but I felt that his definition of syntagmatic relations contradicts his explanation to the objection.  In addition, Saussure says, “Speaking is characterized by freedom of combinations; one must therefore ask whether or not all syntagms are equally free.”  Here, he is acknowledging the boundaries of language and how certain phrases are not free because they belong to language.  This is also where the argument of tradition in language can be argued because from what I understood, Saussure is saying only some parts of speaking applies to his definition of syntagmatic relations.  Throughout this chapter, Saussure also uses examples from the French language, perhaps to emphasize his points, and making it appear universal.

The  next part of the chapter discusses associative relations, which are essentially words that are similar which we associate in our memory.  Saussure states, “Whereas a syntagm immediately suggests an order of succession and a fixed number of elements, terms in an associative family occur neither in fixed numbers nor in a definite order (866).”  Associative relations were easier to understand.  He compares a word to the center of a constellation.  “It is the point of convergence of an indefinite number of co-ordinated terms (866).”  Basically, associative relations are words, which are connected in our minds and words that we automatically associate with one another.  It doesn’t have anything to do with discourse or the way we verbalize them but how we are wired to link certain words together because of what they actually mean.

While reading Jonathan Culler’s explanation of Ferdinand Saussure’s linguistic theories, I could not help but feel it echoed much of what Nietzsche spoke at length about in his piece, “On Truth and Lying”. Both writers attempt to draw focus to the fact that the means of communication and identification man has implemented and “improved” throughout the course of time, are meaningless. And they are kind of harsh about it (Nietzsche significantly more so, however): Nietzsche condemns our act of subduing ourselves and our liberty to  through the construction of a “prison house” of language, while Culler, paraphrasing Saussure, claims, “[our] predecessors failed to think seriously about what they were doing” in reference to the process of putting together an acceptable means of exchange. 

Culler goes on to explain the meaning behind Saussure’s “arbitrary signs” – that the names of objects are merely subjective to who it is that is doing the referring and that they are a “sequence of sounds no better suited to that purpose than another sequence”. There is much truth in that phrase, I believe. But how can it be determined that, in choosing another sequence or sound, that that sequence will or will not be better suited? How is the right “signifier”, as Saussure calls it, going to be identified? WILL it ever be identified?

I agree with the direction Saussure takes the discussion in when he begins to explore a scope at different languages, more specifically English and French. He considers the translation of words from one of the languages to the other and brings up an interesting notion: That the reason behind why things are labeled what they are in each respective language depends primarily on the factors you are considering in order to differentiate between a selection of words that essentially refer to things in the same category. I understood the point Saussure wishes to make here: that the meaning of something can be more truly examined and understood if we consider what that something is NOT.

His look at varying languages prompted me to consider how the meanings of certain words also develops with time and how the context in which they are used changes considerably. For example, the word “tramp” is no longer popularly associated with “urban nomads” and a “troll” is no longer just a grotesque under-bridge-dweller. But I noticed this development most clearly during Islamics class in primary school, where we would learn the verses of the Qura’an. Trying to explain the lessons of each “ayah”  to myself using word-for-word translation proved really hard: the meanings I associated with certain words was not the meaning it conveyed when the book was written. It felt hopeless to even try to come to terms with such outdated  literature. For a while, I was reading and learning the verses just to get nods of approval from well-meaning teachers. And also stickers. But then I went back to trying because the opposite of “fun” should not be “hard”: then no one would have finished reading Moby Dick. ANYWAY, semantic changes over time, as well as across languages, could deem language a flimsy foundation to base a whole mode of exchange on.      

After reading essays that dealt with how language fails to understand “the true nature of an object”, I wondered to myself: “Yeah. So?” Why should it matter if the essence of what we are describing is not surfacing through our description or labeling of it? Does that matter? If we are merely concerned with highlighting a global way of identifying certain things – animals or planets or what have you – then why should it be of any concern to us whether we have stumbled upon what those objects are actually referred to as? I feel that this argument of “what we are doing is incorrect” could easily pass into the conversation regarding any other matter we take part in during our time: Business, tennis, the focus of our philosophical contemplation, etc. How can anyone be sure that what we do and how we go about doing it is completely right? Or irrefutably accurate? Perhaps I have misunderstood the focus of the piece, but these are the thoughts I was left with as I completed the reading.

Saussure pries deeply into what language really is. One of Saussure’s points is, certainly, that language goes beyond what many people view it as, an enormous list of words with a corresponding meaning or definition. He complicates the idea, although not unnecessarily, that linguistic sign serves to unite, “not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image” (852). Saussure interestingly separates language from speech, showing that language is not at all dependent on speaking, although it may seem hard to do so. Saussure uses a rather interesting example, that language is always communicated within one’s mind to oneself, in which case, doesn’t require speaking.
Saussure stresses the arbitrary nature of sign, firstly stating that “the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary,” (854) which I suppose, is true. Surely, any given person can create a bond between the signifier and the signified, and resulting sign serves a purpose for that person. What confuses me about this section is what Saussure states later, “the individual does not have the power to change a sign in any way once it has become established in the linguistic community.” Signs may be created and used personally, but that arbitrary power is no longer present in the context of a community. That being said, the arbitrary nature of sign that Saussure stresses is rather limited, although I may just be misinterpreting the passage completely.
Saussure next talks about the coupling of thoughts with sound, which reminds me of his view between language and speech. Coupling a thought and sound is that of giving a word its pronunciation. Although it is not a necessity for one to be with the other (language and speech), they surely compliment each other very well.
Saussure tackles the linguistic value from a material viewpoint. Similar to how bills and coins reflect different values depending on the monetary value they are created as, the linguistic signifier establishes its value by having its unique sound-image. Money of vastly different value can be created using the exact same material, just as language is created with a set of letters and sounds, the value is dependent on the people who utilize them. Viewing language from a material viewpoint, giving it a “tangible element,” is an interesting concept. Seldom do we consider how language is given to us, we take it for granted, and we accept it with little questioning.