Dear André and All,
I am afraid this is still _Relevance_ theory. Koans are surely extremely
relevant, i.e. to produce
a very significant cognitive effect, namely a philosophical principle such
as 'that there is nothing to be dug up''
Actually I think that is probably a very simplistic version of the effects
conveyed, betraying a 'pure semantics' tempation to pin down a single
clearcut implicature
for an utterance. Rather, a koan is a limit case of poetic relevance,
conveying a range of weak implicatures and leaving a maximum
amount of implication to the hearer's responsibility. This in turn conveys
the meta-lesson (a distinctive feature of Buddhism, I think, when compared
to many religions) that 'we should take responsibility for our judgments
and interpretation of the world rather than accept them from purported
authorities.
But this does also show the poissble confusion between the everyday loose
use of 'relevant' and its technical (RT) use.
Best,
Robin
t 16:54 15.01.2004 +0200, you wrote:
>Dear All,
>
>Relevance Theory
>Relevance of an input to an individual
>
>a. Other things being equal, the greater the positive cognitive effects
> achieved by processing an input, the greater the relevance of the input
> to the individual at that time.
>
>b. Other things being equal, the greater the processing effort expended,
> the lower the relevance of the input to the individual at that time.
>
>
>Irrelevance Theory (tentative):
>
>G: What is the nature of Buddha?
>S: I eat rice every day.
>
>Irrelevant, purely phatic communicative moves (phatic communication
>being the opposite of informative communication) when used as a
>well-planned communicative strategy (not resulting from slips of the
>tongue or mental
>disorders) have greater perlocutionary effects (encouraging to dig deeper
>with the
>purpose of discovering that there is nothing to be dug up ),
>cause more processing effort, thereby yielding greater probability of
>exposure to
>extralinguistic reality (aka enlightenment, satori, samadhi etc.) as
>illustrated by the practice of
>koans in Zen Buddhism and Absurd Literature (Lewis Carroll).
>
>(Note: increased cognitive effect about the "verbally described" world yield
>nothing but ...)
>
>
>References:
>
>Lao Tzu
>Chuan Tzu
>Alan Watts
>CARLOS CASTANEDA
Prof. Robin Setton
Professeur à l'unité d'interprétation
Ecole de traduction et d'interprétation
Université de Genève
Boulevard du Pont d'Arve 40
CH-1211 Genève 4
Tél. +41 22 379 87 53
FAX +41 22 379 87 59
E-mail Robin.Setton@eti.unige.ch
http://www.unige.ch/eti/interpretation
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