|
Ancient Semiotics
and Modern Scholarship: Giovanni Manetti’s Theories of the Sign in Classical
Antiquity Some readers may
wonder why a book by an Italian national, on classical antiquity, is being
reviewed in the pages of Voices in
Italian Americana. I refer them to my remarks in VIA 6.2, on reviewing there Gian Biagio Conte’s Latin Literature: A History, as the
same hold true here. Manetti’s project is
one that ought, in my opinion, to have been undertaken a very long time ago.
The very words ‘semiotics,’ ‘semiology,’ ‘semasiological,’ and ‘semantic’ are
derived from the ancient Greek root √sêm- : the verb sêmainô
means ‘signify,’ and the nouns sêma
and sêmeion mean a ‘sign’ or
something that stands for something else. In fact, of course, Manetti is not
the first to discuss the topic. Without leaving my desk I can reach for
George Kennedy’s brief but very interesting note, “Ancient Antecedents of
Modern Literary Theory,” and D. S. Clarke’s Sources of Semiotic, each of which gives some awareness of the
importance of the ancient interest in what we now call semiotics. But a
sustained investigation of ancient Greek and Roman theories of the sign was
badly needed; and Manetti has now made substantial provision in this
capacity. Manetti finds the
roots of formal significatory practice in divination and what he calls
“magical medicine” (xv), and these not only in ancient Greece and Rome—which
is what we usually mean by ‘classical antiquity’—but indeed in Mesopotamia of
the third millennium BCE. Thus the book begins with a chapter on Mesopotamian
divination; but it quickly becomes clear that these prolegomena are needed in
order to situate us, first, to the phenomenon of ancient Greek divination
(chapter 2), and then to the remarkable shift that occurred in Greek
medicine, from essentially divinatory practices to what we would think of as
a more scientific method of symptomatology (chapter 3).[1] Manetti makes the important point that
in ancient Greece the sign is “the area in which divine knowledge erupts into
the human sphere” (15). In this respect, I might add, semiotics can be
compared to rhetoric.[2] However, the ‘language of the gods’ as
represented in divine oracles differs from human speech first and foremost
with reference to time: for the
gods, who are not caught up in time as mortals are, past and present are
equally present with the present.[3] It might be interesting to investigate
the extent to which the development of rationalist approaches to semiotics
paralleled that of a more sophisticated understanding of time. Certainly,
in the ancient world, both reached a zenith of sorts in the work of
Aristotle. One of the loci classici for ancient semiotics is
that fragment of Heraclitus numbered B93 in the collection of Diels and
Kranz: The lord [scil.
Apollo] who has the oracle in Delphi Neither discloses [legei] nor hides [kruptei]
his thought, but indicates it through
signs (sêmainei).[4] Manetti’s translation
of sêmainei here, as representing a
form of semiosis that requires special interpretation (by prophets), is
perhaps as good a solution to this desperately obscure conundrum as one is
going to find: it makes internal sense, and moreover harmonizes this fragment
with an important passage in Plato’s Timaeus
(71e–72a). One is however left with the inference that—for Heraclitus at
least, and presumably for those of his readers who could follow his train of
thought[5]—ordinary human speech (typically
signified by the verb legein, which
Heraclitus also uses here) is not a
form of semiosis requiring any kind of interpretation that might be called sêmainein; and thus that sêmainein in this period is not used,
at least not principally used, in the ordinary modern semiotic sense of
‘signify’ or ‘represent.’ And that has far-reaching implications for the
Derridean notion of logocentrism and the perceived transparency of
referential meaning in language. These early chapters
of the book are followed by one each on Plato and Aristotle. Plato is
obviously an important witness to the history of Greek semiotics. Manetti
investigates his treatment of language in the Cratylus and the Seventh Letter.[6] The chapter on Aristotle looks in some
detail at the opening words of the De
interpretatione, at the connection between logic and signification,
at—of all things—the semiotics of physiognomy, and at the connection between
signs and knowledge. Chapter 6 investigates Stoic philosophy; Manetti
rightly emphasizes the close connection of semiotics, in its development by
the Stoics, with grammar. The remainder of the book moves through some important
moments in later antiquity: the Epicurean tradition, including an entire
chapter on Philodemus, whose work on rhetoric is about to undergo a
renaissance of scholarly interest; a variety of Latin rhetoricians (the
Auctor ad Herennium, Cicero, and Quintilian); and a final and climactic
chapter on Augustine. There is much to be
grateful for in this book, and I hope it will not be deemed cavilling if I
mention what I would have liked to see included in it. The first thing that
comes to mind is the enormous importance of non-linguistic semiotics in
Plato. Here, by the way, let me mention that, while the International
Association for Semiotic Studies “has resolved that the term ‘semiotics’
should be used as a translation of ‘semiology,’”[7] I will distinguish here between them
here as referring to the Peircean and the Saussurean schools respectively.[8] While Manetti is of course aware of the
non-linguistic sign (see 84–87), the overwhelming majority of his attention
is given to language—a distinctive predilection of the semiological rather
than the semiotic approach, as has been recently explored in Floyd Merrell’s
Sign Textuality, World, another
book in the same “Advances in Semiotics” series in which Manetti’s appears.
Thus, though in truth it would be a lengthy and difficult undertaking, one
misses here a treatment of Plato’s doctrine of the Forms and the way in which
the entire sensible world is in effect in semiosis with those—how, indeed,
sensibles are diagnosed by Plato as signs
of the Forms. To produce such a treatment one might begin with that portion
of the Republic that describes the
Divided Line (Book 6 ad fin.,
507b–511e). This then will have enormous implications for Plato’s attitude
toward mimesis, both linguistic and otherwise.[9] Plato’s theory of the Forms maps the
realm in which semiotics overlaps with metaphysics itself; perhaps Manetti
made the conscious decision to steer clear of such overtly philosophical
speculations. And yet, more and more, semiotics itself is being embraced
(even by professional philosophers, who have not always been so receptive) as
an aspect of the philosophy of language. I would enjoy seeing demonstrated
that it was already so in ancient Greece. The other major
lacuna, in my estimation, is in the chapter on Aristotle. Here again, Manetti
might have given more attention to the non-linguistic sign, and particularly
to Aristotle’s use of the term mimêsis,
which is (I think) in diametric opposition to Plato’s use of the same term.
It is true that Manetti does not shrink from a detailed explanation of De interpretatione 16a—surely the
cornerstone of Western semiotic theory—but here his semiological orientation
leads him toward a more Saussurean assessment; he misses the opportunity to
show that his own ‘semiotic triangle’ (fig. 5.1, p. 72) is essentially a
diagram of Peirce’s representamen-object-interpretant triad—and that Aristotle’s
theory is, while linguistically illustrated, not merely confined to the
realm of language. In fact (and perhaps this has already been done by
someone) it would be interesting to investigate the extent to which the
formulation of Peirce’s own model was influenced by his reading of Aristotle.
For Manetti, however, Aristotle’s “theory of the sign is completely distinct
from the theory of language and may be located rather at the point of
intersection between logic and rhetoric” (77); I think this seems so to him
because he believes that Aristotle’s use of the word sêmeion at De
interpretatione 16a 6 is “in a weak meaning” (72). I am inclined to
disagree with that assessment; but the problem of technical vocabulary in
Aristotle is extremely complicated, and perhaps without final solution. Not surprisingly, the
pioneering work of Umberto Eco looms fairly large behind this book. Indeed,
he is invoked in its first sentence, and his is the only blurb on the
dust-jacket. Other continental scholarship with which Manetti is
well-acquainted includes the French anthropological approach to Classics as
exemplified by Vernant and Detienne. His evident approval of this school
will not be shared by all American classicists; but then many of them will
also be put off or threatened by the topic of semiotics. As is typical of
books produced by the Indiana University Press, this one is simply packaged,
sturdy of binding and clear of print, on paper of high quality. Greek is
transliterated, but (what is rare) both vowel-quantities and accents are
marked. There is no index, and endnotes rather than footnotes are used, but a
useful bibliography is included. Purdue
University Works Cited Clarke, D. S., Jr. Sources of Semiotic: Readings with
Commentary from Antiquity to the Present. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
UP, 1990. Eco, Umberto.
“Looking for a Logic of Culture.” The
Tell-Tale Sign: A Survey of Semiotics. Ed. Thomas A. Sebeok. Lisse: Peter
de Ridder, 1975. 9–17. Kennedy, George A.
“Ancient Antecedents of Modern Literary Theory.” American Journal of Philology 110 (1989): 492–98. Kirby, John T.
“Mimesis and Diegesis: Foundations of Aesthetic Theory in Plato and
Aristotle.” Helios 18 (1991):
113–28. ___. “Toward a
Rhetoric of Poetics: Rhetor as Author and Narrator.” The Journal of Narrative Technique 22 (1992): 1–22. ___. “Rhetoric and
Poetics in Hesiod.” Ramus 21
(1992): 34–60. Manetti, Giovanni. Theories of the Sign in Classical
Antiquity. Trans. Christine Richardson. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993. Merrell, Floyd. Sign Textuality, World. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1992. |
[1]Both the divinatory and the ‘scientific’ approaches to medicine might, however, be termed ‘semiotic’ in that they both depended on the interpretation of signs.
[2]On this see Kirby, “Rhetoric and Poetics in Hesiod.” It is interesting too that an acute twentieth-century critic, Roland Barthes, placed great emphasis on both semiology and rhetoric.
[3]On the importance of time in narrative, see the remarks in Kirby, “Toward a Rhetoric of Poetics” (with bibliography).
[4]Manetti 17 (italics his; I have added the glosses in square brackets).
[5]Even in antiquity, Heraclitus was known as ho skoteinos—‘the obscure.’
[6]He assumes for the purposes of this book that the Seventh Letter is authentic—or hedges, at least, by saying that ‘it contains sufficient material of interest in its own right to merit a careful analysis in this context’ (66).
[7]Eco 9.
[8]Manetti’s translator does not, of course, observe my distinction; see e.g. her use of ‘semiological’ on xiii.
[9]Treated in some detail in Kirby, “Mimesis and Diegesis.”