Term
Linguistic Turn
used in 12 texts across the archive
“Gans' originary hypothesis completes the "linguistic turn" of 20th century thought—the intuition guiding the dismantling of metaphysics by 20th century thinkers was that language doesn't represent some external and independent reality; on the contrary, language, or more generally, signs, is constitutive of anything we can call a human reality. What Gans' hypothesis does is explain why language is constitutive: because it was through the sign that our immediate ancestors transcended the mimetic rivalry that perpetually threatened their existence by discovering/inventing a way of deferring violence.”
In use
“The reason for the linguistic turn is that the metaphysical scene of humanism, predicated upon the metalinguistics of literacy, could no longer effectively defer violence.”
“Completing the linguistic turn is essential because the metalanguages of humanism and metaphysics obscure the forms of authority needed to ensure intelligent participation in institutions and hierarchical orders.”
“The linguistic turn in Western thought in the 20 th century derives from this recognition, which was certainly aided by both the emergence of mass literacy and mass education, and by the emergence of new media that made it possible to place writing in a broader historical context.”
Key texts