The contribution address the relation between the linguistic sign, economic value, and philosophical concept through the question of touch and tactility. Starting from Saussure’s metaphor of the sign as the “wave as encounter of wind and water” (implying touch as the mediator between the wind of the signifier and the water of the signified), the article proceeds through three different approaches in regard to the question of language and the related problem of touch: first, through Saussure’s idea of the sign as homonymous to value in order to correlate it with Marx’s own definition of value as the one ”converting every product into a social hieroglyphic” (implying value as the converter of a tactile materiality into a material language); second, through Hegel’s conception of the sign as the “pyramid into which a foreign soul has been conveyed and where it is conserved” (implying a tactility of the sign and an untouchable content); and third, Hegel’s “concept of concept” or begriff in connection to Lacan’s concept of lalangue (implying a certain conceptual tactile quality inside language itself).
COBISS.SI-ID: 36003677
The contribution develops the concept of (un)teachability in the field of haptic materialism by combining Marx's value-theory with haptic studies on the one hand and structural linguistics on the other. The original scientific contribution of the chapter lies in the theory of repetition, which enables a connection between value, touch and the linguistic sign. In such a manner their common denominator becomes precisely the material substance, understood in contemporary materialism as an un-objective reality repeating itself all over again. It is from this perspective that the contribution address also contemporary social trends that reduce any value to economic value, and that promote the "new" in the palpable, tangible difference between commodities, which are all the same, while the novelty arises precisely through the untouchable repetition of the same.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36004701
The contribution tries to think the parameters within which it is possible not just to conceptualize the sense of touch, but more significantly, witness the emergence of touch from the spirit of word. It firstly tries to subvert the conventional notion of touch concerned only with its physical aspect. Through Hegel it becomes clear that touch as the capacity of sensation is structured as the idea of Begriff, presented as a cut or pure difference, while the gesture of touching becomes inseparable from its lingual expression. Finally, it considers the different features where the function of tangibility becomes entangled with the linguistical facet, for instance in the experience of a kiss, a glance of a gaze, or a simple tender gesture.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36004445