Grammatical subject-predicate form secretly encodes an ontology that directs reading
Evidence
The grammatical structure of the predicative proposition represents substance as if a passive subject were receiving its predicates from outside. From the perspective of ratiocinative thinking, the proposition reproduces an ontological model, a model which functions as referent for that particular proposition. The reader, by becoming a transparent stand-in for the subject of the statement, expects that the subject has thereby become transparent to its referent, and that the elocutionary dimension of the proposition will volatilize into something else of which it is only the sign and the index. The syntactical structure of the proposition, in so far as it reproduces an ontological order independent of language, necessarily determines for the reader what the exegetical procedure will be: one should look outside the text, for a non-textual meaning. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1232
Categorization
- XREF: The claim that grammar smuggles in an ontological model resonates with Nietzsche’s and later deconstructive readings of grammar as metaphysics — also connects to the reader’s interest in how representational cognition gets structurally embedded. — connects to: Speculative propositions reveal an incline that ordinary grammar conceals — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1172; Grammar’s subject-predicate form dictates a referential, non-textual interpretive procedure.; Ordinary grammar’s linear subject-copula-predicate structure blocks genuine speculative thought — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1172 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Ordinary grammar’s linear subject-copula-predicate structure blocks genuine speculative thought
#expands(0.92) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1172 - Grammar’s subject-predicate form dictates a referential, non-textual interpretive procedure.
#expands(0.90) - Past tense predicates require a recollecting synthesis anchored in present being
#complicates(0.72)