Words are possibly neutral, 'harmless', and 'peaceful', but syntax surely triggers conflict, because speakers and signers inscribe their creative dissidence in almost every utterance, as their signature. Only in situations of celebration do we speak without adding problematic contents to the current state of the realm of meaning. The semiotic phenomenon of negation is precisely as crucial as Hegel thought it to be. Meanings oppose, and distinctive structures arise as naturally as social oppositions of mutually exclusive believers in them. Language is a necessary asocial and unstable component of any stable society.
Negation is also one of the most difficult phenomena of the semiotic catalogue of problems.
It takes mental space and blending theory, theory of counterfactuality and conditionality, space delegation theory, theory of causation, modality, and narrative dynamics, only to understand the issue. But this is precisely what this semester's seminar intends to do. Strange things are seldom just complex versions of the simpler things we already think we understand. Instead, the ideas we might bring forward in order to treat the monsters of a field are often just those we need for understanding the alleged trivialities better. Let us call this the teratological principle of current philosophy of science.