Return to Saussure

The Machine of Lagado, lithography. AI image “Methinks I hear some objector, demanding with an air of pleasantry and ridicule: ‘Is there no speaking then without all this trouble? Do we not talk every one of us, as well unlearned as learned; as well poor peasants, as profound philosophers?’” — George Berkeley, Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher Introduction In the third part of Gulliver's Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift describes one of the strangest inventions in literary history. At the Academy of Lagado, Gulliver encounters a gigantic apparatus composed of wooden frames covered with words. Students turn handles, rearranging verbal combinations at random. The machine's inventor proudly claims that, with sufficient effort, anyone could produce books on philosophy, law, science, and politics without the inconvenience of study. The episode was intended as satire. Yet nearly three centuries later, readers find themselves in an unusual position. Machines now translate doc...