Philosophical Ramblings Thread

[Fragony]

Linguists are of course mainly concerned with the study of language and literature.

The problem is that a hefty number of them, like Derrida, wants to use the methods used for analyzing literature to study society. This has lead to all sorts of nonsense, like giving support to alternative medicine and other pseudo-science cranks.

I never heard of Derrida so can't comment on that. But studying the literature of the time as it uses. I often completily mistaked dead serious with sarcasm and irony, does paint a picture of society. My favorite screwup, forgot which book it is, but the author was mocking the fact that a young boy was buying a pickle, something someone with some standing never ought to do. I mistook it for sarcasm but my teacher explained that it wasn't sarcasm at all, the author was serious about it. Count the times that you use an expression without knowing where it actually came from. You will need an extra hand to count them.