Word Help

[bcholmes]

"Discursive"

In pomo circles, I was pretty sure that the term "discursive" describes questions that bring critical assumptions into focus or questions which cause radical rethinking of a set of assumptions.

Am I crazy? Anyone else familiar with that usage? (m-w.com and dictionary.com both give me very different definitions).

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

that's how i remember it... lemme check the OED...

hrm:
 1. Running hither and thither; passing irregularly from one locality to another. rare in lit. sense.
  
2. fig. Passing rapidly or irregularly from one subject to another; rambling, digressive; extending over or dealing with a wide range of subjects.  

3. Passing from premisses to conclusions; proceeding by reasoning or argument; ratiocinative. (Cf. DISCOURSE v. 2.) Often opp. to intuitive.
   B. as n. A subject of ‘discourse’ or reasoning (as distinguished from a subject of perception). Obs. rare.


n.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

1&2 together, and 3, are the groups of definitions I'm finding as well. Given the origin that all the references I can find show (Latin discursus), definition 3 is kind of puzzling, yet it's *likely* the original meaning of the usage that BC's talking about. It's pretty easy to go from "analytic" to "well-thought" to "perceptive" in casual usage among a group.