PRIMARY RESOURCES
An Annotated Bibliography of Walker Percy's Writings on Language
A bibliography of his writings on language with short annotations of each of his semiotic writings
Percy's Writings on Language (An Annotated List of Percy's Books and Essays)
The following bibliography covers the period 1954-2019 as represented in each of Percy's four non-fiction books identified in the following section below. The majority of the listed essays beneath it are collected in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other (1975).
Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature (2019) provides resources not selected for publication in either Message in the Bottle or Signposts in a Strange Land.Additional Resource: See Walker Percy's Writings on Language (By Original Publication and Date) for a listing of where each item below originally appeared in print.
Percy's Non-fiction Books Incorporating Writings on Language
- The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1975).
Fifteen scholastic essays on the unique nature of mankind, language, and their relationship. Contains Percy's most technical considerations of language and epistemology. - Lost in the Cosmos:The Last-Self Help Book (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1983).
A general, lay philosophical consideration of the nature of the "self" and its quest for identity. A book in a genre of its own. - Signposts in a Strange Land (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991).
Posthumous publication of Percy's uncollected nonfiction works divided into three major sections: "Life in the South"; "Science, Language, and Literature"; and "Morality and Religion." - Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2019).
Features numerous previously unpublished Percy writings on language. The book provides a systematic framework for understanding his intellectual background related to his writings on the subject of language.
Specific Writings on Language Within the Preceding Books
1. The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other
**Note on Chapters 1-6
In this book only the essays "The Delta Factor," "Metaphor as Mistake," and "The Message in the Bottle" are directly concerned with Percy's philosophy of language.
- "The Delta Factor" (Chapter 1)
Lengthy, at times randomly discursive consideration of the nature of mankind and its place in the 20th century, though several focused points of reflection upon language towards the end (cf. Helen Keller, Delta Factor, pp. 30-45). - "Loss of the Creature" (2)
A consideration of the individual's loss of sovereignty when it comes to relying upon modern (abstracted) "authorities" for information rather than one's own experience/impressions. - "Metaphor as Mistake" (3)
An attempt to explore metaphor as the true maker of language, it often being bred of error. - "The Man on the Train" (4) and "Notes for a Novel about the End of the World" (5)
Concerned with the art of the modern novel and the role of the novelist. - "The Message in the Bottle" (6)
Concerned with different types of speech acts, particularly those of science (knowledge) vs. those of faith (news). Semantically-oriented.
**Note on Chapters 7-15 in The Message in the Bottle
The following are the chapters in MB that are most concerned with his philosophy of language.
- "The Mystery of Language" (Chapter 7)
A general, non-technical consideration of the nature of the symbol and mankind's manipulation of it as an "organism." Clear and direct. - "Toward a Triadic Theory of Meaning" (8)
A more formal, technical consideration of Charles Peirce's "triadic" model of language. Considers the nature of the "sentence" and its "reception," breaking ideas down according to an enumerated outline. Not a clear, cohesive article, but rather a cluster of ideas. - "The Symbolic Structure of Interpersonal Process" (9)
A lengthy, though detailed consideration of: the inadequacy of the behavioral theory of meaning; the structure of symbolic behavior; and the symbolic structure of therapy between therapist and patient. A phenomenological, existential consideration of each; interesting reflection upon the therapeutic context. - "Culture: The Antinomy of the Scientific Method" (10)
A critique of science through a technical consideration of the "assertory event" at the root of science and the antinomy into which science is thrown when it is applied to human culture: calls for a more "radical" anthropology. Pertains to the philosophy of science. - "Semiotic and a Theory of Knowledge" (11)
A consideration of semiotics (of symbolic logicians and behaviorists) and semantics; the nature of symbolization and various approaches to it; intersubjectivity; and the co-intentional nature of the symbol-meaning relation. A theoretical overview of many of his ideas. Complex at times, but insightful. - "Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity" (12)
A concise, though technical consideration of George Mead's behavioral (social) model of consciousness, while suggesting that it doesn't adequately grasp the "denotative" function of the symbol and the complexity of human consciousness as an intersubjective exercise. - "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism" (13)
A short, specific, and insightful consideration of the role of both the symbol and intersubjectivity as they relate to existentialism and the search for human stability. - "Symbol as Need" (14)
Spring-boarding off of Susanne Langer's ideas, this essay considers symbolization as the essential act of the mind, one, however, that moves beyond "biological need," instead functioning rather as a means of "knowing." - "A Theory of Language" (15)
Percy's most technical article: argues that behaviorism's (S-R, dyadic) explanatory model of language is inadequate and that structural linguistics and transformational grammar (Chomsky) are not explanatory models, but rather descriptive. Proceeds to offer Percy's hypothesis about the LAD as a "coupler."
2. Lost in the Cosmos: The Last-Self Help Book
- "A Semiotic Primer of the Self," pp. 86-126.
Presents Percy's language theory in a tight exposition before moving into general ontological commentary about mankind's "strange predicament" and the "unspeakable" nature of the "sign-using self."
3. Signposts in a Strange Land
The following essays from the section of this essay collection entitled "Science, Language, and Literature" are concerned with Percy's semiotics.
- "Is a Theory of Man Possible?", pp. 111-129. [Previously unpublished]
This essay provides a more detailed consideration of language, consciousness, and the unique nature of mankind, while situating its ideas in contrast to those of a Darwinian-naturalistic bent. - "Naming and Being," pp. 130-138.
This non-technical, philosophical essay probably provides the best lay overview of Percy's key thoughts about language. - "The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind," pp. 271-291.
This essay offers in lay language a thoughtful criticism of the limitations of modern thought as based in Descartes, Darwin, and Freud, and expresses the need for a "new," more comprehensive model of mankind.
4. Symbol and Existence: A Study in Meaning: Explorations of Human Nature
This posthumous book provides numerous previously unpublished writings by Percy on language and provides a systematic framework for understanding his intellectual perspectives on the subject of semiotics [244 pps].