The Seventh Function of Language (book review) Laurent Binet

Laurent Binet (Translation), Sam Taylor (Translation)

031017: not near as effective for me as his first book. i have been reading philosophy for many years by now, but came too late for the highlights of enmity, disparaging, disputes of the so-called 'linguistic-turn' as it is manifest in 'anglo-american analytic' versus 'continental' traditions of the 1980s. so i may recognize some names but have more read of than either on or by. my readings precede them- being mostly phenomenonologists, husserl, sartre, heidegger, merleau-ponty, de beauvoir, and then some on foucault, deleuze, eco, and not terribly interested in said discussion and disputes... i have read mostly continental but it is not like i am a prof...

structuralism, post-structuralism, postmodern thought, deconstruction, logician, etc. are all more recent history of philosophy and not current interests. i 'know' them as resources and not arguments. for this book it probably helps the reader to know a bit of these ideas, personalities, disputes, but aside from a very good summary of roman jakobson's 'functions of language', the reader is thrown into the deep end of various satirical and comic representatives of 'French theory' as it is known in its transfer to american philosophical discourse. there might be more satire, more interest, if you know many named thinkers and thought. but i much prefer umberto eco's novels...