“Language as calculus” in Beckett's writing: A new perspective on Beckett's conception of language

Irit Degani-Raz

doi:10.1515/sem-2014-0010

Article

“Language as calculus” in Beckett's writing: A new perspective on Beckett's conception of language

Irit Degani-Raz
Irit Degani-Raz (b. 1954) is a lecturer at Tel Aviv University 〈razirit@netvision.net.il〉. Her research interests include the semiotics of theater and drama, the drama of Samuel Beckett, and the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. Her publications include “Theatrical fictional worlds, counterfactuals, and scientific thought experiments” (2005); “The Spear of Telephus in Krapp's Last Tape” (2008); “Diagram, formalism, and structural homology in Beckett's Come and Go” (2008); and “Cartesian fingerprints in Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine” (2012).

Published/Copyright: May 23, 2014

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From the journal Semiotica Volume 2014 Issue 200

Abstract

The issue of the conception of language in Beckett's works has given rise to many studies. The conceptual schemes that scholars have used to explicate Beckett's view on language range from modern language theories to post structuralist ones, and have contributed to locating Beckett on the twentieth century's cultural horizon. In this study I suggest a new perspective on Beckett's conception of language by employing a perspective on the historical genesis of possible-worlds semantics, suggested by the philosopher Jaakko Hintikka. The historical background of possible worlds semantics is tightly connected, according to Hintikka, to a gradual switch from one overall way of looking at language and its logic to a competing view. He calls the former the conception of “language as the universal medium” and the latter the conception of “language as calculus.” I contend that although in his writings Beckett seems to subscribe to some version of the first position of language, various aspects of his dramatic works also appear implicitly to reflect some intuitive version of the competing idea. It is his conception of language as calculus – I argue – that offered Beckett the possibility of elaborating strategies by which to escape the “trap” of language.

Keywords: possible worlds; Beckett; “language as the universal medium”; “language as calculus”; Not I; realism

About the author

Irit Degani-Raz

Irit Degani-Raz (b. 1954) is a lecturer at Tel Aviv University 〈razirit@netvision.net.il〉. Her research interests include the semiotics of theater and drama, the drama of Samuel Beckett, and the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. Her publications include “Theatrical fictional worlds, counterfactuals, and scientific thought experiments” (2005); “The Spear of Telephus in Krapp's Last Tape” (2008); “Diagram, formalism, and structural homology in Beckett's Come and Go” (2008); and “Cartesian fingerprints in Beckett's Imagination Dead Imagine” (2012).

Published Online: 2014-5-23

Published in Print: 2014-6-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/sem-2014-0010

Keywords for this article

possible worlds; Beckett; “language as the universal medium”; “language as calculus”; Not I; realism