Between the Destruction of Two Temples: Post-Structuralisms

We calld any specific formalization of expression a regime of signs, at least when the expression is linguistic. A regime of signs constitues a semiotic system. But it appears to difficult to analyze semiotic systems in themselves: there is always a form of content that is simultaneously inseparable from and independent of the form of expression and the two forms pertain to assemblages that are not principally linguistic
- A Thousand Plateaus, pg. 111

Welcome to poststructuralism.

Perhaps it's bombastic or offensively simplifying to say that, but it seems that in this statement G+D are explicit critiquing the tenets of structural linguistics and begging the consideration of a more heterogenous linguistic and semiotic schema. Hence their title for this plateau "587 B.C. - A.D. 70: On Several Regimes of Signs."

In this chapter, G+D not only critique the idea of a totalizing semiotics (which they call "general semiology") but engage in the construction and reconsideration of other signifying systems, marginalized by the displacing centrality of Saussure's semiotics, and the cultural theorists who have propogated its essentialism. The problem G+D have with this "general semiology" is that signs are only related to other signs, constucting an overly simplistic and simultaneously fundamentally meaningless signifying chain. "That is why... one can forgo the notion of the sign for what is retained is not principally the sign's relation to a state of things it designates, or to an entity it signifies, but only the formal relation of sign to sign as it defines a so-called signifying chain" (112). Put more succintly, "the limitlessness of the significance replaces the sign" (112). Foreshadowing their critique of Chomsky, these semiotics "have fallen into the worst kind of abstraction, in the sense that they validate a level that is both too abstract and not abstract enough" (148). They are both distant from meaning anything, and unable to tell us anything about meaning.

So G+D examine a host of other signifying sytems, none of which are meant to be considered discrete or essential from another, and all of which cannot be mistaken as a total collection or canon. And these structures will inevitably invoke the rhizome as a concept of their organization and meaning. Beyond "general semiology" G+D also believe that "the signifying regime is not simply faced with the task of organizing into circles signs emitted from every directionl it must constantly assure the expansion of the circles or spiral, it must provide the center with more signifier to overcome the entropy inherent in the system and make new circles blossom or replenish the old" (114). Recalling directly the psychology of Judge Schrieber, this radiating schema of meaning is all about the plurality of directions along which signification might occur. Which why exactly it perplexes and overthrows the idea of the sign as a "sign of signs" (112).

Itself a challenging, even discontinous, signifying system, "On Several Regimes of Signs" posits a plurality of signification schemas in its own narrative construction. Which makes reading it so hard. From the critique of structuralism that begins the chapter, to directly rebuking Chomsky on its final page, "On Several Signs..." actually seems to work in exactly the opposite conceptual direction as its temporal title suggests. Bookended between two dates of the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem (the Babylonians in 587 B.C. and the Romans in 70 A.D.) the chronological spread of this time period suggests rebuilding. But G+D are after unbuilding. They want to deconstruct, though not exactly along Derrida's lines. So unlike the temporal history 'bounding' their engagement with semiotics, G+D don't begin with ruins, but with a completed temple of signification which they tear apart throughout the text, and rebuild in "several" ways, before resolving to posit an incomplete, but somehow cohesive (re)construction of signification, by arguing that it is pragmatics which may "fundamental" and "upon which all the rest depend" (114).