Object Lesson I: Vocab-Cultures

Derrida and Rorty both suggest that “the truth is not out there”—meaning beyond the constructs of language—and by so doing draw our attention to the nature of truth as being wholly encapsulated within sentences (which are described as essentially “units” of truthiness). According to Rorty “the World is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.”—this leads in to his discussion of vocabularies and the role these play in shaping the range of human thought. If descriptions are the things by which we ascribe truth-values, then progress in all fields of study occurs as the result of negotiations between a problematic constituent vocabulary and a new, more effective one which emerges through Derrida’s “bricolage”, the process through which language users manipulate the “means at hand” (i.e. the extant vocabulary) to fill in “gaps” in their understanding.

In this way Nietzche’s “mobile army of metaphors” comes to life, engaged in a constant hegemonic struggle against terms perceived as inadequate for describing reality; one result of this language warfare occurs when vocabularies manage to “separate” themselves, forcing individuals to adopt what Burke calls “terministic screens.” Burke claims that “the nature of our terms affect the nature of our observations”, and further that “different screens direct attention differently, shaping the range of observations in each terminology.” This notion of “different screens” led me to recall an article I encountered in my first undergraduate rhetoric class: C.P. Snow’s Reid lecture on “The Two Cultures.” In it, Snow examines how separate vocabularies have led to a state of “mutual incomprehension” between two polarized factions: “literary intellectuals” and “physical scientists.” He links these broad classifications together through their use of common vocabularies:

• [Of scientists] its members need not, and of course often do not, always completely understand each other; biologists more often than not will have a pretty hazy idea of contemporary physics; but there are common attitudes, common standards and patterns of behavior, common approaches and assumptions.
• …
• They have their own culture, intensive, rigorous, and constantly in action. This culture contains a great deal more argument, usually much more rigorous, and almost always at a higher conceptual level, than literary persons’ arguments—even though the scientists do cheerfully use words in senses which literary persons don’t recognize, the senses are exact ones, and when they talk about ‘subjective’, ‘objective’, ‘philosophy’ or ‘progressive’ they know what they mean, even though it isn’t what one is accustomed to expect. (10-13)

This concept of “Cultures” as basically “discourse communities” emphasizes a communication barrier between users of different vocabularies, strongly resembling the example given by Burke of the different (yet similar) terms utilized by Theologians and Darwinian Evolutionists. Snow includes the following anecdote to help illustrate his point:

• A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? (16)

These readings provide significant support for the idea that our vocabularies shape the way we understand reality. I can see how such paths of inquiry could be useful for researching the benefits of interdisciplinary studies programs (which I have some personal experience with as a former employee at USC’s BAIS department) and for examining how different terms of discussion influence the overarching social discourses of today.

-Sam Fuller