Questions and answers

• talks a lot about Wittgenstein's theories on false questions + the idea of private languages (the pain example)
• on religion and how its decline ushered in a world where meaning was suddenly uncertain
• on celebrity fads and the commercialisation of the search for meaning
• on the role that sport plays in many peoples' lives

The problem of meaning

• splits out various common definitions of meaning as either: 1) intending; 2) signifying; or 3) intending to signify, none of which work for "the meaning of life"
• a little more on language-games (without calling them that)
• the famous soliloquy from Macbeth (sound and fury, signifying nothing, etc)
• Schopenhauer's views on mankind being victim to a malevolent greater power
• Althusser on ideology being, perhaps, necessary
• Lacan on the dichotomy between meaning and being

The eclipse of meaning

• how some writers like Chekhov, Conrad, Kafka, Beckett feature a "central absence" in their work, since the societal (?) slipping away of meaning was noticeable during their lifetimes
• on the other hand, postmodernism doesn't have the same issue, since it's not old enough to recall a time when there was meaning
• a lot about Beckett straddling modernism and postmodernism (Eagleton seems to really like Beckett)
• goes into what is essentially death-of-the-author stuff without referring to it by name
• also transcedence vs facticity, though again without using those words (I guess they're old ideas)

Is life what you make it?

on Aristotle, and inequality, and individual/common answers to the question

Preface

Chapter One

claim: Marxism is no longer relevant. response: no, cus there is still exploitation

Chapter Two

claim: actually existing socialism is awful and oppressive. response: it was only ever implemented as a last resort (kinda like women being given CEOships), in conditions of scarcity, with every other country wanting it to fail

Chapter Three

claim: too deterministic. response: institutional/structural factors still leave room for individual action

Chapter Four

claim: presumes a utopian view of human nature. response: structure can drastically change human behaviour, esp since the worst human behaviours are often the result of material scarcity

Chapter Five

claim: it's economic determinism, too simplistic. response: material needs will take precedence over others as long as there is scarcity but that doesn't mean the others don't exist?

Chapter Six

claim: something about it not being spiritual enough? response: actually, socialism will free us

Chapter Seven

claim: class is an outdated concept. response: there are other important things but class is fundamental as long as we have capitalism

Chapter Eight

claim: too violent. response: only cus the established order resists

Chapter Nine

claim: the state would be too powerful. response: it doesn't have to be; Marx wanted it to "wither away". plus what's the diff (threat-wise) between an all-powerful monopoly corporation vs a state, except that the state is at least nominally accountable to the people? (though actually the state theoretically has legitimacy in terms of violence and its claim to be "for the people", so think about this more idk)

Chapter Ten

claim: kind of a rehash of 7; that class is an antiquated concept. response: class struggle is still entwined with all the others so we have to keep working on it

Conclusion

Preface

Introduction: What is Literature?

thoughts on the definition of literature and how murky it necessarily is

The Rise of English

Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Reception Theory

Structuralism and Semiotics

Post-Structuralism

Psychoanalysis

Conclusion: Political Criticism

Notes