Bill Benzon with another post

I agree with his verdict that the Wittgenstein statement is a kind of false sophistication (“pure solipsism and pure realism coincide”).

He’s alo right about this:

“And that brings us to Harman and The Quadruple Object, which has diagrams similar to those of Greimas. The four corners are always there, variously labeled (e.g. Earth, Gods, Mortals, Sky, p. 89; Real Object, Real Qualities, Sensual Object, Sensual Qualities, p. 79), but the sides and the diagonals may [not] always be there. So there is variation on a limited and tightly constrained theme.”

I’ve been meaning to write something on Greimas since the end of 2007 or so, but it keeps falling behind my desk. Bill reminds me to do this more quickly than has been the case so far.

As for my own diagrams, Bill writes:

“I don’t think these diagrams are MERE illustrations either. They may not be absolutely necessary to grasp Harman’s thought, but I’m thinking that the penultimate chapter on ontography, which itself has no diagrams, probably goes better if you have studied—studied not merely looked at—the earlier diagrams and can look back at them as necessary. So I’m tentatively scoring those diagrams for compositionism. They are not mere illustrations, but rhetorical devices for conveying the compositionist fact of Harman’s thinking.”

Right again. Also, these won’t be the final form of the diagrams. They can be better, and there can be many more of them. Wait a few books from now, and you’ll see what I have in mind. The ones in the recent book are like stick figures compared with the next version of them.