The Thoughts Of Marx In Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Russell (1960: 749):

[Marx] called himself a materialist, but not of the eighteenth century sort.  His sort, which, under Hegelian influence, he called 'dialectical', differed in an important way from traditional materialism, and was more akin to what is now called instrumentalism. The older materialism, he said, mistakenly regarded sensation as passive, and thus attributed activity primarily to the object.  In Marx's view, all sensation or perception is an interaction between subject and object; the bare object, apart from the activity of the percipient, is a mere raw material, which is transformed in the process of becoming known.  Knowledge in the old sense of passive contemplation is an unreal abstraction; the process that really takes place is one of handling things.

Blogger Comments:

Marx's 'activity' interpretation of perception, as the interaction of subject and object, has been imported into Systemic Functional Linguistic theory as the view that the impact of the environment is (actively) construed as meaning — an epistemological view that also follows from the theory of experience embodied in the grammatics.

The 'activity' interpretation of perceptual categorisation can also be seen in neuroscience, in Gerald Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection.  Here the impact of the environment on sensory detectors selects some active neuronal groups over others, differentially probabilised by the activity of inherited 'value' systems, with different impacts selecting different groups, resulting in different categorisations of perceptual experience.  Presumably the intellectual source, in this case, is the pragmatism of William James and John Dewey, rather than the dialectical materialism of Marx.

The Thoughts Of John Stuart Mill Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Russell (1961: 744):

John Stuart Mill, in his Utilitarianism, offers an argument that is so fallacious that it is hard to understand how he could have thought it valid.  He says: Pleasure is the only thing desired; therefore pleasure is the only thing desirable.  He argues that the only things visible are things seen, the only things audible are things heard, and similarly the only things desirable are things desired.  He does not notice that a thing is 'visible' if it can be seen, but 'desirable' if it ought to be desired.  Thus 'desirable' is a word presupposing an ethical theory; we cannot infer what is desirable from what is desired.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, pleasure is one type of emotive mental process; in this case it corresponds to that which accompanies the satisfaction of a desiderative mental process.  Mill's claim can be construed as follows:

α			x β cause: result
pleasure	is	the only thing [[desired]]	therefore	pleasure	is	the only thing [[desirable]]
Token	Process	Value		Token	Process	Value

The ellipsis of the Mood element in the embedded clauses serving as Qualifiers of the nominal groups serving as Values conceals important distinctions:

Phenomenon	Process: mental: desiderative
that	is	desired
Subject	Finite	Predicator
Mood		Residue

Carrier	Process	Attribute
that	is	desirable
Subject	Finite	Complement
Mood		Residue

Here 'the only thing' (referenced by the elided 'that') shifts from being construed as the Phenomenon of a desiderative Process in the α clause, to being construed as the Carrier of the Attribute 'desirable', in the β clause.

Ideationally, 'desirable' is a quality of (impinging) desiderative projection, and the thing it is assigned to is agnate with the Phenomenon of a desiderative Process.  Interpersonally, it enacts modal assessment: modulation; that is, obligation and/or inclination.  This is the aspect that Russell picks up on in claiming that 'desirable' presupposes an ethical theory — 'macro-proposals' regarding behaviour.

The propositions of Mill's argument can be construed as follows:

the only things [[visible]]	are	things [[seen]]
the only things [[audible]]	are	things [[heard]]
the only things [[desirable]]	are	things [[desired]]
Value	Process	Token

The ellipsis of the Mood element in the embedded clauses serving as Qualifiers of the nominal groups serving as participants conceal the same important distinctions:

Phenomenon	Process: mental: perceptive
that	are	seen/heard
Subject	Finite	Predicator
Mood		Residue

Carrier	Process	Attribute
that	are	visible/audible
Subject	Finite	Complement
Mood		Residue

However, the qualities serving as Attributes, 'visible' and 'audible', unlike 'desirable', do not function interpersonally to enact modal assessment.  They are concerned with potentiality, rather than modality; see Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 143).

This is the grammatical evidence that supports Russell's philosophical analysis of Mill's argument as fallacious.

The Thoughts Of Bentham Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Russell (1961: 740):

He recognises association of ideas and language, and also association of ideas and ideas.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, ideas are the meanings of language, which are projected by mental processes, and which are realised by the wordings of language, these projected as locutions by verbal processes.  Once established in the ontogenesis of language in individuals, the meanings of language can be incorporated and expressed in the other semiotic systems that language makes possible, such as diagrams etc.

The Thoughts Of Schopenhauer Vs Systemic Functional Linguistics [4]

Russell (1961: 727):

Historically, two things are important about Schopenhauer: his pessimism, and his doctrine that will is superior to knowledge. … More important than pessimism was the doctrine of the primacy of the will. … In one form or another, the doctrine that the will is paramount has been held by many modern philosophers, notably Nietzsche, Bergson, James, and Dewey.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the distinction between will and knowledge is the distinction between desiderative consciousness (a senser desiring) and the contents of cognitive consciousness (the projected ideas of a senser thinking).

The Thoughts Of Schopenhauer Vs Systemic Functional Linguistics [3]

Russell (1961: 724):

But the will that is behind phenomena cannot consist of a number of different volitions.  Both time and space, according to Kant — and in this Schopenhauer agrees with him — belong only to phenomena; the thing–in–itself is not in space and time.  My will, therefore, in the sense that it is real, cannot be dated, nor can it be composed of separate acts of will, because it is space and time that are the source of plurality — the principle of 'individuation'*, to use the scholastic phrase which Schopenhauer prefers.  My will, therefore, is one and timeless.  Nay, more, it is to be identified with the will of the whole universe; my separateness is an illusion, resulting from my subjective apparatus of spatio-temporal perception.  What is real is one vast will, appearing in the whole course of nature, animate and inanimate alike.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, volition — desiderative mental processes — is in space and time, since all processes are construed to unfold in time, and volition, space and time are all construals of experience as meaning.

From the perspective of Eastern philosophy, Schopenhauer has identified 

• the Buddhist notion of 'the world beyond pairs of opposites' — 'beyond fear and desire' — with Kant's noumena, and 
• the Buddhist notion of 'undifferentiated consciousness' — in 'the world beyond pairs of opposites' — just with desiderative consciousness.

* The term 'individuation' has been used by some members of the SFL community, but not with comprehension.

The Thoughts Of Schopenhauer Vs Systemic Functional Linguistics [2]

Russell (1961: 724):

Kant had maintained that a study of the moral law can take us behind phenomena, and give us knowledge which sense-perception cannot give; he also maintained that moral law is essentially concerned with the will. The difference between a good man and a bad man is, for Kant, a difference in the world of things–in–themselves, and is also a difference as to volitions. It follows that, for Kant, volitions must belong to the real world, not to the world of phenomena. The phenomenon corresponding to a volition is a bodily movement; that is why, according to Schopenhauer, the body is the appearance of which will is the reality.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, Schopenhauer ascribes the semiotic construal that is desiderative consciousness to the domain outside semiotic construals.

volitions	must belong to	the real world (things–in–themselves/noumena)
Carrier: possessed	Process: relational: possession	Attribute: possessor
a senser desiring	must belong to	the experience that is construed as meaning

Moreover, Schopenhauer regards desiderative mental processes as 'reality' (noumena) and their corresponding bodily material processes as mere 'appearance' (phenomena).

noumenon = reality	phenomenon= appearance
volition	bodily movement
a senser desiring	an actor doing

The Thoughts Of Schopenhauer Vs Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

Russell (1961: 723-4):

Schopenhauer's system is an adaptation of Kant's, but one that emphasises quite different aspects of the Critique from those emphasised by Fichte or Hegel.  They got rid of the thing–in–itself, and thus made knowledge metaphysically fundamental.  Schopenhauer retained the thing–in–itself, but identified it with the will.  He held that what appears to perception as my body is really my will.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, Schopenhauer identified the experience that is construed semiotically as 'my body' with desiderative consciousness: a senser desiring.

the experience that is construed semiotically as 'my body'	is	desiderative consciousness: a senser desiring
Identified Token	Process: relational	Identifier Value

That is, Schopenhauer locates the semiotic construal of experience as desiderative consciousness outside the domain of semiotic construal (meaning).

The Thoughts Of Romantics vs Rationalists Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Russell (1961: 696):

The romantic form of revolt is very different from the rationalist form, though both are derived from the French Revolution and the philosophers who immediately preceded it.  The romantic form is to be seen in Byron in an unphilosophical dress, but in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche it has learnt the language of philosophy.  It tends to emphasise the will as the expense of the intellect, to be impatient of chains of reasoning, and to glorify violence of certain kinds.  In practical politics it is important as an ally of nationalism.  In tendency, if not always in fact, it is definitely hostile to what is commonly called reason, and tends to be anti-scientific.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the distinction between the will and the intellect is the distinction between to two types of projecting mental processes — mental symbolic processing — desiderative and cognitive, respectively.  Desiderative processes project proposals, commands and offers, whereas cognitive processes project propositions, statements and questions.  Hence the alignment of the will with nationalism and the alignment of the intellect with science.

The Thoughts Of Kant Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [10]

Russell (1961: 685):

Kant, like Berkeley and Hume, though in not quite the same way, goes further [than Locke], and makes the primary qualities also subjective.  Kant does not at most times question that our sensations have causes, which he calls 'things-in-themselves' or 'noumena'.  What appears to us in perception, which he calls a 'phenomenon', consists of two parts: that due to the object, which he calls the 'sensation', and that due to our subjective apparatus, which, he says, causes the manifold to be ordered in certain relations.  This latter part he calls the form of the phenomenon.  This part is not itself sensation, and therefore not dependent upon the accident of environment; it is always the same, since we carry it about with us, and it is a priori in the sense that it is not dependent on experience.

Blogger Comment:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, all qualities, primary and secondary, are intersubjective construals of experience as meaning.

Kant's 'noumena' might be compared with the experiences that are mentally construed as meaning, as phenomena, with the provisos that these are not 'things' or 'objects' unless they are construed as such, and that it is the impact on the body that is construed as meaning, as mental phenomena.

Kant's 'sensation' might be compared with the phenomenon of a perceptual mental process, as instance, whereas Kant's 'form' of the phenomenon might be compared with the phenomenon of a cognitive mental process, as systemic potential.

	phenomenon of cognition	phenomenon of perception
system	‘form’
instance		‘sensation’