ABSTRACT
Whereas the general Phenomenological framework is highly compatible with syntagmatic theory, the Analytical framework is highly inimical to it. My discussion of Analytical philosophy will therefore be largely negative and uncomplimentary. But Analytical philosophy cannot be criticized on the same grounds as Superstructuralism. For Analytical philosophers, whether Logical Analytical or Ordinary-Language Analytical, have no predilection for single words as against sentences. On the contrary. The Logical Analytical attitude can be traced all the way from Frege-–‘only in the context of a sentence does a word have significance’—though to Donald Davidson-–‘individual words [may not] have meanings at all, in any sense that transcends the fact that they have a systematic effect on the meanings of the sentences in which they occur.‘37 As for the Ordinary-Language attitude, we need look no further than Searle-‘sentences, not words, are used to say things’—and Austin-‘to say a word or a phrase “has a meaning” is to say that there are sentences in which it occurs which “have meanings”; and to know the meaning which the word or phrase has is to know the meanings of sentences in which it occurs’.38 Although Analytical philosophers (perhaps especially Russell, and Wittgenstein in both his Logical and Ordinary-Language phases) continue to theorize about the meanings of single words, basically they regard single word-meanings as dependent and unfulfilled. The grounds for criticism lie elsewhere: specifically, in the fact that Logical Analytical philosophers think of sentences in terms of (sentence-sized) propositions; while Ordinary-Language Analytical philosophers think of sentences in terms of (sentence-sized) speech-acts.
