Tekmērion: a technically unambiguous text but a sure sign of nothing

I’ve got some explaining to do.

First, the self-identifying feminists on my dissertation committee have asked me, “Are you coining ‘feministically’? It has the pejorative connotation. You know, as Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, ‘Man cannot speak for woman.’ Will you be able to heed that?”

Second, a linguist blogger friend has challenged me saying, “I believe the evidence is overwhelming that texts are far less ambiguous than you make them out to be -- and far less dependent on intertextuality -- otherwise literature would not be translatable.”

Third, my good friend yesterday requested an explanation asking, “Why do you have to call yourself a ‘feminist’? I have this reaction to the word, and it has so much negative baggage. ‘Feminism,’ but come on, any ‘-ism’ is so reductive and limiting. ‘Communism,’ ‘Marxism,’ even the less charged ‘egalitarianism’ or less social ‘trinitarianism’ limits.

I’ve given them all straightforward answers. But there’s more. It seems crooked at first, but it’s not. It seems silly but if you keep reading you’ll see some serious translating, feministically. I’m asking these questions now first:

Are texts really ambiguous and dependent on intertextuality and untranslatable? Are words connotative of some nature, whether a sexed body or a gender-hardwired brain or some negative thing? Won’t you let me dodge (just a moment longer) your questions about categorical mismatch? Would you listen if I told you stories instead of propositions?

Sometimes when I teach adult learners of the English language I’ll show them the old lady / young lady optical illusion. But first I’ll cut off the corners of the picture and make it into a circle and wad it up and throw it at a startled student. Invariably, everyone laughs involuntarily to my great relief, and the student unfolds the paper, orients it, and begins with the others in the room to describe what they see: “it’s an old woman.” “it’s a young lady, see?” And when pressed, they go on. “No, no dog.” “no airplane.” And when the questions are more open ended, asking what else they observe, it gets quiet. But then there are comments about the clothing and about the race of the women and about their class and their ages and their hair and about the artist’s intention, and about mine.

One of my teachers used to say this in a different sort of class: “What we need is ‘radical relativism within rigid restraints’.” My teacher was quoting Nelson Goodman.

(But a scholar on objectivism and the problems of relativism came to the campus where I work now. When we talked, he objected to the statement on the grounds that Goodman was playing with words for alliterative impact but had no idea, really, what real relativism is. “What he means is ‘pluralism,’ the visiting scholar told me, and he mailed me a published article he’d written on that very topic to prove it to me.

((The funny thing is that I was once a visiting scholar at a very pluralistic campus. A friend, a member of the religion department there, invited me to speak, as a linguist, in a lecture series on “religion and _______.” Now the school had ‘Christian’ as one of its names but in its marketing it was invariably just “C,” kind of like the “F” in KFC just because “fried” is starting to have so many negative connotations for the body. (“Christian” University connotes “bible college” and other unhealthy such things I suppose). Anyway, I asked the audience of religionists to define “religion.” Silence. Then a smart-alecky grad student pipes up with “The True definition is . . .” which trailed off into his laughter and everyone else’s including mine. The professor of Islam finally gave the serious answer: “Religion cannot be singularly defined.” So I asked if they’d let me offer a definition of “language,” the topic of my talk. And I quoted or paraphrased or translated Noam Chomsky: “The human faculty of language seems to be a true 'species property,' varying little among humans and without significant analogue elsewhere.” I went on to center my talk around Goodman’s famous statement, insisting that we humans need both radical relativism and rigid restraints. Afterwards my friend protested saying he’d spoken with an elephant named Emily in India through a human interpreter. Language, you see, for him didn’t need the human restraints.))

But if Goodman uses ‘relativism’ when another scholar says he means ‘pluralism,’ what did you think he means? What do you believe really?)

I don’t believe a word or a text of words is ambiguous. Rather, we human beings supply the radical relativism. And we offer the rigid restraints as well. But some, and Aristotle is classic here, want to believe the text and that nature (with no regard for humanity or our bodies and our minds and our spirits) is rigid and restrained. Aristotle never met Albert Einstein. He never met Werner Heisenberg either. But that’s some imaginative radical relative fantasy to arrange such a meeting.

John Henry Freese and George Alexander Kennedy did meet Aristotle’s text. They then “translated” it. But they focused on rigid restraints, on the alphabet of the Greeks, on transliteration as if somehow to preserve the lack of ambiguity in the text. So here’s from Book I, chapter 2 (page 1357a). First Freese, then Kennedy. Then you’ll read Aristotle’s words, and next to it a translating rhetorically, feministically:

[16] As to signs, some are related as the particular to the universal, others as the universal to the particular. Necessary signs are called tekmeria; those which are not necessary have no distinguishing name. [17] I call those necessary signs from which a logical syllogism can be constructed, wherefore such a sign is called tekmērion; for when people think that their arguments are irrefutable, they think that they are bringing forward a tekmērion, something as it were proved and concluded; for in the old language tekmar and peras have the same meaning (limit, conclusion).

16. In the case of signs [sēmeia], some are related as the particular to the universal, some as the universal to the particular. Of these, a necessary sign is a tekmērion, and that which is not necessary has no distinguishing name. 17. Now I call necessary those from which a [logically valid] syllogism can be formed; thus, I call this kind of sign a tekmērion, as though the matter were shown and concluded [peparamenon]. (Tekmar and peras [“limit, conclusion”] have the same meaning in the ancient form of our language.)

[16] των δὲ σημείων τὸ μὲν ούτως έχει ως των καθ' έκαστόν τι πρὸς τὸ καθόλου, τὸ δὲ ως των καθόλου τι πρὸς τὸ κατὰ μέρος. τούτων δὲ τὸ μὲν αναγκαιον τεκμήριον, τὸ δὲ μὴ αναγκαιον ανώνυμόν (5) εστι κατὰ τὴν διαφοράν. [17] αναγκαια μὲν ουν λέγω εξ ων γίνεται συλλογισμός: διὸ καὶ τεκμήριον τὸ τοιουτον των σημείων εστίν: όταν γὰρ μὴ ενδέχεσθαι οίωνται λυσαι τὸ λεχθέν , τότε φέρειν οίονται τεκμήριον ως δεδειγμένον καὶ πεπερασμένον: τὸ γὰρ τέκμαρ καὶ πέρας ταυτόν εστι κατὰ (10) τὴν αρχαίαν γλωτταν.

[16] As to signs, some are related just as each and every thing is to the universe, while others just as the universe is to the part. The forceful ones are the sure-signs. (Those which are not forceful are the ones carried through and yet unnamed). [17] Now, I call the forceful ones those birthed from an arrangement of statements: thus, such a sign is a sure-sign. In fact, when someone thinks there’s a decisive statement, they think it’s carried forward as a sure-sign, something as if it were shown and limited; and “sure,” in fact, is “limit” from the beginning in the mother tongue.

Now, what explaining is left to do?

Suffering Suffixes: "-ική" and "-ic"

Suppose someone coined the words ῥητορική and feministic. Who?

ῥητορική

Rhetorician Edward Schiappa makes an excellent case that Plato coined ῥητορική. In fact, Schiappa observes, "Plato's creative use of language is well established, as is his need to invent a proper philosophical vocabulary. In particular, it is significant that Plato was a prolific coiner of words ending with -ική denoting 'art of'" ("Did Plato Coin Rhetorike," 464).

Afterwards, Plato's neologisms were readily adopted. For example, Aristotle in the Rhetoric alone (by my count) uses some 33 different terms with the suffix -ική; and he uses these words some 519 times.

But where did Plato get the suffix -ική? How early in Greece did it appear? No -ική word can be found in the fragments of Sappho's poetry. Neither does any such term show up in Homer's Illiad. (These findings are by my very careful search).

And yet, as early perhaps as the 690s BCE, Homer (in the epic Odyssey) and Hesiod (in the poem, Work and Days) use a word with the -ική suffix. They use only one word, the same single word, suggesting to me that one of these two poets coined the term and the other borrowed it. Hesiod includes the word twice in his poem; Homer but once. The neologism is παρθενικῇ (an ostensibly newly-coined variant of the much more common παρθενικός, for "virgin" or "maiden").

Here then are the contexts in which Hesiod's and Homer's παρθενικῇ can be found. I'm including, line by line, Daryl Hine's English translation of Work and Days and Johan Heinrich Voss's translation of the Odyssey (from the Chicago Homer). The boldings and underlinings are added:

WD.60 Ἥφαιστον δ' ἐκέλευσε περικλυτὸν ὅττι τάχιστα
WD.60 Then he commanded Hephaistus the world-famed craftsman as soon as

WD.61 γαῖαν ὕδει φύρειν, ἐν δ' ἀνθρώπου θέμεν αὐδὴν
WD.61 Possible to mix water and earth, and infuse in it human

WD.62 καὶ σθένος, ἀθανάτῃς δὲ θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἐΐσκειν
WD.62 Speech, also strength, and to make it look like a goddess, and give it

WD.63 παρθενικῆς καλὸν εἶδος ἐπήρατον:
WD.63 Likewise a girl-like form that was pretty and lovesome.

________________________________________________________

WD.516 καί τε δι' αἶγα ἄησι τανύτριχα: πώεα δ' οὔτι,
WD.516 Also it [the North Wind] blows through the goat's fine hairs, but the fleece of a sheep

WD.517 οὕνεκ' ἐπηεταναὶ τρίχες αὐτῶν, οὐ διάησι
WD.517 Cannot because it is so close-packed that the powerful North Wind

WD.518 ἲς ἀνέμου Βορέω: τροχαλὸν δὲ γέροντα τίθησιν
WD.518 Cant penetrate it, which nonetheless easily bowls over old men.

WD.519 καὶ διὰ παρθενικῆς ἁπαλόχροος οὐ διάησιν,
WD.519 Nor is it able to penetrate smooth-skinned virginal maidens

WD.520 ἥ τε δόμων ἔντοσθε φίλῃ παρὰ μητέρι μίμνει,
WD.520 As they abide in the house beside their affectionate mothers,

WD.521 οὔπω ἔργα ἰδυῖα πολυχρύσου Ἀφροδίτης,
WD.521 Blissfully ignorant stir of the doings of gold Aphrodite.

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OD.7.14 καὶ τότ' Ὀδυσσεὺς ὦρτο πόλινδ' ἴμεν: ἀμφὶ δ' Ἀθήνη
OD.7.14 Just then Odysseus got up to go to the city. Athena poured

OD.7.15 πολλὴν ἠέρα χεῦε φίλα φρονέουσ Ὀδυσῆϊ,
OD.7.15 much mist about him, with dear thoughts for Odysseus,

OD.7.16 μή τις Φαιήκων μεγαθύμων ἀντιβολήσας
OD.7.16 lest any great-hearted Phaeacian, meeting him,

OD.7.17 κερτομέοι τ' ἐπέεσσι καὶ ἐξερέοιθ' ὅτις εἴη.
OD.7.17 might taunt him with words and ask him who he was.

OD.7.18 ἀλλ' ὅτε δὴ ἄρ ἔμελλε πόλιν δύσεσθαι ἐραννήν,
OD.7.18 But when he was about to enter the fair city,

OD.7.19 ἔνθα οἱ ἀντεβόλησε θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη,
OD.7.19 bright-eyed goddess Athena met him

OD.7.20 παρθενικῇ ἐϊκυῖα νεήνιδι, κάλπιν ἐχούσῃ.
OD.7.20 in the guise of a young maiden woman holding a pitcher.

There are several very important things to note about the suffix -ική in the context of Hesiod's and Homer's poetry. First, the Greek suffix -ική seems to connote an adjectival meaning of quality. In English, adjectival suffixes of quality include "-ish," "-esque," "-al," "-y," "-ist" and "-istic" as in coinable words such as "virginish," "virginesque," "virginal," "virginy," "virginist," and "virginistic." Second, in Work and Days and in the Odyssey, the suffix -ική also allows the sense of "art of," the meaning that Schiappa says that Plato has for the word-ending. Third, then--with respect to translation in the three contexts (in the poetry lines) above--one might exchange for Daryl Hine's "girl-like" and "virginal" and for Johan Heinrich Voss's "guise of a maiden woman" the following: "with the skill of a virgin in being a virgin" or, to match Plato's shorthand, "virginistic."

Fourth, the artful/skillful feminist qualities of -ική attached to παρθενικός cannot be overlooked! In the first instance, Hesiod's poem suggests παρθενικῇ is something a) skillfully crafted; b) commonly human; c) divine in appearance; d) strongly, beautifully rhetorical (though ῥητορική was not yet coined); and in the form of a female. In the second use of παρθενικῇ, there is the metaphorical, poetic suggestion that the natural ability to resist (under a goddess's protection) the force of natural elements in the cold, North Wind IS virgin-like (especially when the maiden lives in her loving mother's home). Old men and goats are not so resilient. In the third use of παρθενικῇ (Homer's use of the coined term) above, there is the disguised manner with which Athena appears to the hero, Odysseus: neither as the word-taunting Phaeaician he expects nor as the bright-eyed goddess Homer's Greek audience knows, but as a virginistic young lady.

feministic

Feminist scholar Bonnie Blackwell makes an excellent case that British English speakers coined the word, feministic. The adjectival is formed from the double suffix, "-ist" + "-ic". A similar kind of suffix application occurred with the proper noun, Puritan. While such a noun can function just fine adjectivally (as in "a Puritan ideal"), English speakers have insisted on adding to the adjective "Puritan" not only "-ic" but also "-al"; the resulting double suffixed adjective is "puritanical." To find the etymologies of feministic, Blackwell advises (my) looking in the Oxford English Dictionary. Sure enough, there in the OED, I find the following:

femi'nistic, femini'nistic adjs.

1902 BEERBOHM Around Theatres (1924) I. 365 Ibsen's femininistic propaganda. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 11 Sept. 6/3 Some thinkers in Hungary anticipate feministic developments even in Turkey. 1912 Englishwoman Mar. 261 This society is only feministic in so far as it strives to give women better opportunities.

Blackwell adds that contemporary British feminists such as Juliett Mitchell and Germaine Greer along with American feminists including Kate Millett may occasionally use the double-suffix adjective form of feminist. The distinction between the two adjectives, feminist and feministic, is this: the former relates more often to the qualities of a person who is a feminist, the latter to less-personal and more-abstract qualities. Thus, "a feminist scholar" is a more typical use than "a feministic scholar"; and "feministic developments" might be preferred by some to "feminist developments."

Blackwell's observations about feminist vs. feministic are corroborated by those of folklorist Bruce Jackson, who muses about folklorist vs. folkloristic (and various such academic, technical terms) in his article "Folkloristics." (The article started a published controversy among folklorists apparently). Jackson theorizes the following:

The usual process is for an abstract noun or adjective (absolute, real, fatal) to be attributed to a person (absolutist, realist, fatalist) and thereby made into a noun of another order, and then for that noun to be turned into an adjective (absolutistic, realistic, fatalistic) . . . And it is the same for us: the person who studies the class of things called "folklore" is a "folklorist," and the adjective meaning "folklorist-like" is "folkloristic." "Folkloristic" as an adjective is correct when it refers to work done by folklorists; the adjective for material examined by folklorists is "folkloric." "Folkloristic research" means "the kind of research folklorists do," but not "research into folklore." (96).

I'll leave to you bloggers to figure out the connections, grammatically, between "feministic" and "folkloristic" and such. I do want to say that searches through amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, scholar.google.com, and books.google.com all show that writers are publishing works in which they also now use the adverbial "feministically."

Suppose someone coined the words ῥητορική and feministic. What I have been trying to show here is how related the two terms are, not merely by the suffixes -ική and -ic but also by the inter-personal, subjective (dare I say, rhetorical and feministic?) ways we use them.

feminism, rhetoric, translation

Women and rhetoric are problems for elitists and misogynists, like Aristotle. Translation is equally problematic, for intellectual purists.

So now, what if we translated Aristotle's Greek Rhetoric into English feministically? Watch what happens . . .

In the mean time, what do you think of this anti-feminist backdrop?

Aristotle did not need to spend much time on slavery in the Rhetoric because he had justified it in detail in the Politics, the master art in which his rhetoric is a subsidiary . . . . In Aristotle’s system, soul is privileged over body, intelligence over emotion, humans over animals, men over women, and freemen over slaves.
--Jasper Neel, Aristotle's Voice: Rhetoric, Theory and Writing in America

But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female. Wherefore the poets say, "It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians"; as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one.
--Aristotle, the Politics