Postmodernism and socialism

[A.R.Amistad]

I have been reading this book on human nature called Seven Theories of Human Nature. The book analyzes Marxist, Christian, Freudian, Skinner, Sartre, Plato and Lorenz views on what affected human nature and what ideologies sprung out of these schools of thought. The books analysis of Marx is elementary at best, describing him as a Utopian and showing only low level study into Marx's works. Still, overall the book is a very good analysis of how we see human nature. The book somewhat concluded that these schools of thought are completely alien to each other, but I came to a different conclusion. I saw that actually these schools of thought could easily be related, despite my partisan adherence to Marxism (not religiously of course). After all, we all know about Christian Marxists and Liberation Theology. Hell, Sartre became a Marxist in the last years of his life, and even though I don't care for him, I'm sure their are more than a few Marxists who admire Freud. Basically, all of these ideas are in some shape or form connected, and not necessarily in contradiction to each other. It was this that has led me to become interested in Postmodern thought. I think that it is very possible to be a Marxist, a partisan of the working class and a revolutionary socialist without opposing every other "ism" than communism. I am really intrigued by the Postmodern concept of human ideas and conceptions of human nature. Anyone else share similar feelings? Opposing feelings?

[berlitz23]

Well Postmodern Politics espouses anti-essentialist, anti-humanist views incompatiable with the whole concept of "Human Nature" and Englightment theories of progress. These are indispensable constituents of Post-Modern Thought, but If you are going to tread the opaque junglelands of postmodernism it is highly probable you will head into the territory of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze(My Favourite), Lyotard Kristeva, Rorty etc. and philosophers like Foucault and Derrida don't subscribe to the notion of a "subject" rather it is a social construct mediated by the effects of language, desire, and macro/micro institutions. Also it is pivotal you read Nietzsche, Heidegger and familiarize yourself with the territory of psychoanalysis to a greater degree, albeit there are philosophers too in the postmodern milieu who are diametrically opposed to the principles and ideas of psychoanalysis advanced by Freud and Lacan. Postmodernism does not explicitly advocate Marxist politics, rather the events of 1968 and FCP refusal to support the movement precipitated a rupture and disjunction between the libertarian marxist and orthodox marxism. There is psychoanalytical Marxism and Post-Marxism like Negri and Laclau and Mouffe, ultimately there is a plethora of thinkers and ideas associated with the postmodernist movement "your intriguement by the Postmodern concept of human ideas and conceptions of human nature" my admonition is be prepared, because the very concept of "Human" and "Nature" becomes a fundamental project that the postmodern school attempts to liquidate.

[Random Precision]

Sartre became a Marxist in the last years of his life

He was actually a Marxist of the Soviet variety for pretty much his entire working life as far as I'm aware. One of his key projects was trying to build a bridge between Marxism and his version of existentialism.


I'm sure their are more than a few Marxists who admire Freud

Trotsky was one of them, at least in that he thought Soviet psychology should look to the luminaries of the field instead of creating a rigid determinist psychology that transplanted Marx's social theory into a completely different context. That was a noble goal, however I personally think Freud is completely obsolete, and his views certainly don't mesh with a Marxist view of human motivations.

As for "post-modernism", I admittedly am far from clear on what exactly that term means. But as far as politics go, I must admit to being hostile to the forms I have run across, which reduce Marxism to one among many competing paradigms and put across that you can't say your viewpoint can ever be more valid than someone else's. If postmodernism means this, I cannot abide by it whether in politics or in any other walk of life I'm afraid.

[fidzboi]

I think you're right in saying that it's possible to be both a 'Marxist' and something else. All of us, or at least I hope most of us, would be 'Marxist-Darwinists'; and being one thing doesn't necessarily preclude you being another. And I agree with Random Precision if his point is that rigidly applying 'Marxist' frameworks to certain scientific disciplines can be counter productive, though at the same time I'd say the evolutionary theories that posit that we developed so much because our society developed so much, certainly have a 'Marxist flavour'.

Indeed most scientific disciplines have a 'Marxist flavour' simply because they are materialist in nature. But I don't think 'Marxist scientists' have had the best record yet, though much of that revolves around the transformation of 'Marxism' from political theory to political ideology. 'Marxist' theoreticians can be, and often are, incredibly dogmatic and therefore anti-scientific. Good scientific theory constantly looks to innovate, many 'Marxists' by contrast, are well and truly stuck in the past.

That for me, is a problem of middle class influence within the workers' movement, and the middle class co-option of the workers' movement. But whatever problems 'Marxism' has, I don't see the solution being the abandonment of what it does best: materialist analysis. And postmodern theory, along with Religious theory, is fundamentally anti-materialist. And I certainly don't see postmodern theory as being able to sharpen class divides, able to illustrate class power.

There is no 'grand narrative' to postmodernism, no objective truth or even partial truth, just a collection of discourses, all equally valid. Even most of academia has got this one right: it's a load of horseshit! Not meaning to offend anyone, but postmoderism is agnosticism applied to everything; and like agnosticism, it amounts to little more than intellectual word games completely devoid of any real substance. Perfect for an internet discussion forum, not so good for anything else...

[A.R.Amistad]

There is no 'grand narrative' to postmodernism, no objective truth or even partial truth, just a collection of discourses, all equally valid. Even most of academia has got this one right: it's a load of horseshit! Not meaning to offend anyone, but postmoderism is agnosticism applied to everything; and like agnosticism, it amounts to little more than intellectual word games completely devoid of any real substance. Perfect for an internet discussion forum, not so good for anything else...I think you are making a mistake here. It sounds like you are implying that Postmodernism is an ideology. But that's the thing. I really don't see it as an ideology, and postmodernism and postmodernists are so diverse that it couldn't possibly be an ideology. I used to feel that Postmodernism was nihilistic, but now I'm starting to see it as a sort of philosophical tool for learning, where you can still apply Marxism and Marxist practice without being dogmatic, and by realizing the contributions of other ideas to society. An example would be in understanding why a Christian would also be a Marxist, or why a Marxist would be drawn to Darwinist theory, or why a Darwinist would appreciate both Skinner's theories on the individual and Marx's theories on society, etc. etc. etc.

Oh yeah, I am just now realising I should have put this in the Philosophy forum. Sorry everybody.

[Zanthorus]

'Marxist-Darwinists'

Actually I'd be quite worried if there were any pure darwinists around. The modern understanding of evolution is a synthesis of Darwin's ideas on Natural selection and Mendel's research on genetics.

Quibbling aside I'm not too up on post-modernism but from what little do know I'd advise caution trying to combine it with something as materialistic as Marxism.

[Hiero]

I think you are making a mistake here. It sounds like you are implying that Postmodernism is an ideology. But that's the thing. I really don't see it as an ideology, and postmodernism and postmodernists are so diverse that it couldn't possibly be an ideology. I used to feel that Postmodernism was nihilistic, but now I'm starting to see it as a sort of philosophical tool for learning, where you can still apply Marxism and Marxist practice without being dogmatic, and by realizing the contributions of other ideas to society. An example would be in understanding why a Christian would also be a Marxist, or why a Marxist would be drawn to Darwinist theory, or why a Darwinist would appreciate both Skinner's theories on the individual and Marx's theories on society, etc. etc. etc.

Oh yeah, I am just now realising I should have put this in the Philosophy forum. Sorry everybody.

The better word would be post-structuralist trend.

[fidzboi]

Zanthorus, the phrase was just a shorthand way of saying people who recognise the existence of class conflict and accept the theory of evolution. You know what I mean, as do most, which means the phrase is more than suitable for its purpose of conveying a specific idea.

Back to the subject, postmodernism at its best:

'I really don't see it as an ideology, and postmodernism and postmodernists are so diverse that it couldn't possibly be an ideology. I used to feel that Postmodernism was nihilistic, but now I'm starting to see it as a sort of philosophical tool for learning, where you can still apply Marxism and Marxist practice without being dogmatic, and by realizing the contributions of other ideas to society.'

There's one reasonable point in there, we shouldn't overlook 'contributions of other ideas'. Only when they are good, of course, and help us to better understand social reality. But I don't think you need an academic discipline to tell you this, basic common sense, logical thinking and rationality would be enough reason for most to consider 'other dimensions', as it were.

As for the rest, you get the impression it is nothing and yet everything. The general point seems to be that 'postmodernism' is understanding that people utilise the information available to them to form an understanding, ok... so?? There's no real substance, no attempt at outlining a definite understanding, just the simple observation that people are drawn to ideas, without offering any analysis of why they are or whether these ideas are correct.

What is the point? :confused:

[Invincible Summer]

If post-modernism posits that everything in culture and society are signs and can be interpreted differently by different people, then that pretty much means everything is questionable and no one knows anything for certain.

My interpretation of X is just as valid as some respected philosopher's opinion on X then.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I;ve done alittle bit of study on this in my sociology course.

Quite frankly, they aren't compatible.

[Post-Something]

Isn't the post-modern an era, and not a theory?

[Hyacinth]

What little there worth salvaging in post-modernism, post-structuralism, or most contemporary and historic continental philosophy is basically [badly done] sociology. The rest is fit for Hume's bonfire; i.e., it is nonsense. Marxists would do well to distance themselves from such shoddy thinking, and to instead go back to the scientific roots of Marxism: we need to put the science back into scientific socialism. Both from the perspective of reestablishing the respectability of Marxism as a science, and (more importantly) so that we can gain a proper understanding and knowledge of both the workings of contemporary capitalism, as well as how a socialist society could and should be structured.

[9]

Isn't the post-modern an era, and not a theory?

I'm not very well-read on this subject, but I think postmodernism, in the context in which it is being used here, refers to the philosophies which arose in the 20th century as a reaction to modernism.

The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism) offers several definitions as well:

Postmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy, which was the basis of the attempt to describe a condition, or a state of being, or something concerned with changes to institutions and conditions (as in Giddens, 1990) as postmodernity. In other words, postmodernism is the "cultural and intellectual phenomenon", especially since the 1920s' new movements in the arts, while postmodernity focuses on social and political outworkings and innovations globally, especially since the 1960s in the West.
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary refers to postmodernism as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism#cite_note-0)
The term postmodern is described by Merriam-Webster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merriam-Webster) as meaning either "of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one" or "of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature)", or finally "of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language".[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism#cite_note-1)
With regard to the OP, others here are without a doubt more knowledgeable on the subject than me, but from what I understand about attempts to fuse elements of postmodernist philosophy and socialism, the result is never good and tends to be representative of the type of thought that accompanied the rise of the New Left. And I don't see how such attempts could be fruitful, it's like fusing religious fundamentalism with militant atheism. The value of Marxism rests with its materialist analysis - with the fact that it is scientific, rather than Utopian, in its thought and analysis. And from the bit I understand about postmodernism, it is explicitly and intentionally anti-materialist. Granted, considering the ambiguity of the term "postmodernism", I suppose there could be theories claiming that banner which are compatible with a genuine Marxist analysis, but certainly not in the sense that I understand the term.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Unfortunatley, Freud was a complete charlatan:

http://www.richardwebster.net/freudwrong.html

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/borc01_.html

http://www.human-nature.com/freud/fcrews.html

This means, of course, that the work of winbags like Lacan and Zizek is a total waste of space, too.

On PoMo, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/post-modernism-structuralism-t108070/index.html?t=108070&highlight=Freud

[black magick hustla]

there's a few things that can be salvaged from post-structuralist thinking, which is the analysis of "language" itself. however, everything that can be salvaged was already said by wittgenstein in much clearer terms. for example, when derrida talks about mutliple structures, with a "center" and how the structure defines what are opposites or not (good/bad, male/female) etc sounds oddly similar to the wittgensteinian concept of the language game. However, contrary to the language game, which simply points out what is the sociological nature of communication, post structuralism tend to be imbued in metaphysics (reality as discourse for example).

the rest, is language gone on a holiday. Postructuralism based on psychoanalysis being the worst.

[kalu]

I will readily admit I am not an expert, but I will say I have read enough in and outside of the classroom to believe that the line postmodernism is "agnosticism" or "relativism" is total bullshit.

Depending on which author you're talking about (and believe me, the so-called postmodernists don't readily submit to any collective definition), that author is performing a complex assault on Western metaphysics. Take Derrida, for example: Derrida challenges the Western "metaphysics of presence" that proposes a stable meaning between signifier and signified (roughly correlates to "word" and "idea"). Derrida instead proposes a series of terms to put this "presence" under erasure: arche, supplement, trace, differance. Derrida in turn attempts to show how within a supposedly "unified" text, a series of hierarchical oppositions can undo, or "deconstruct," that text. For example, "nature" and "culture" in Rousseau's An Essay on the Origin of Languages. While this may seem like pure literary arcanum, it is in fact extremely relevant to a Marxist politics that overcomes empiricist tautologies, like trying to oppose an "economic base" to a "cultural superstructure." Gayatri Spivak offers a damning verdict on those who choose to ignore both Derrida and Marx's dislocation of the subject in her article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

Let's take another author though, just so we can bid this extremely stupid remark ("pomo is relativism!!!") adieu: Michel Foucault. Foucault, as Spivak herself has pointed out, is a brilliant thinker of "power-in-spacing." Meaning, where Marx has focused on macrological analyses, Foucault has focused on the "microphysics of power." Take his analyses of the prison system, the birth of medicine, and so on. These analyses also employ nontraditional forms of historical temporality, such as genealogy (taken from Nietzsche), which allows us to examine how our very analytical categories are produced in the disciplinary society we are critiquing. Finally, Foucault's concept of discourse is a critical term for understanding power relationships not accounted for in traditional Marxism, like Orientalism.

In sum, what many of you have been chiding as "agnosticism" and "relativism" is but a continuation of the continental trend in philosophy, which began with the estimable Edmund Husserl. "Pomo" works are part of a critical engagement with, and "deconstruction" of, Western metaphysics that are caricatured (not explained) by the usual "pomo is obscurantist nonsense." As Derrida once put it, we must continually return to the transcendental question in order to avoid falling into a naive empiricism. In this regard, these philosophers have done quite well exposing such traps.

In addition, and in stark contrast to many of their analytic peers, these philosophers have also focused on social transformation and practice, and thus they have a clear relevance to Marxist struggle. It would be foolish to ignore, rather than critically engage with and incorporate, their accomplishments.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And yet, Chomsky had this to say about such continental 'philosophers':


I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found a collection of messages extending the discussion about "theory" and "philosophy," a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions -- though I concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.

As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have "theories" and therefore fail to give any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to "theory" and "philosophy" and "theoretical constructs" and the like to remedy this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before "postmodernism" had erupted in the literary intellectual culture: "if there is a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a well-guarded secret," despite much "pseudo-scientific posturing."

To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so; furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration among those who propound what they call "theory" and "philosophy," but little that I can detect beyond "pseudo-scientific posturing." That little is, as I wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world problems that occupy my time and energies (Rawls's important work is the case I mentioned, in response to specific inquiry).

The latter fact has been noticed. One fine philosopher and social theorist (also activist), Alan Graubard, wrote an interesting review years ago of Robert Nozick's "libertarian" response to Rawls, and of the reactions to it. He pointed out that reactions were very enthusiastic. Reviewer after reviewer extolled the power of the arguments, etc., but no one accepted any of the real-world conclusions (unless they had previously reached them). That's correct, as were his observations on what it means.

The proponents of "theory" and "philosophy" have a very easy task if they want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a "secret" to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of "a body of theory, well tested and verified, that applies to" the kinds of problems and issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about, for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the principles of the "theory" or "philosophy" that we are told to study and apply lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached on other (and better) grounds; these "others" include people lacking formal education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions through mutual interactions that avoid the "theoretical" obscurities entirely, or often on their own.

Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.

As for the "deconstruction" that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear: just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long before and and have continued to do since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies --- of course, if they are curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.

These are very easy requests to fulfil, if there is any basis to the claims put forth with such fervor and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an answer to this simple requests, the response is cries of anger: to raise these questions shows "elitism," "anti-intellectualism," and other crimes --- though apparently it is not "elitist" to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge) don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily find out; and somehow I never find the "theoreticians" there, nor do I go to their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is "elitist," not theirs. The opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.

To add another facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly, I never suggest those who propound "theories" and "philosophy," nor do I come across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations, general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad, third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.

The whole debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which the response is more angry charges -- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument. Again, one is led to ask why.

It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).

Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of work of my own in fields called "philosophy" and "science," as well as intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts. That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell you about the wonders of "theory" and "philosophy" to justify their claims --- to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: to the flames.

Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of "Paris school" and "postmodernist cults": the above is a sample.

He then asks, reasonably, why I am "dismissive" of it. Take, say, Derrida. Let me begin by saying that I dislike making the kind of comments that follow without providing evidence, but I doubt that participants want a close analysis of de Saussure, say, in this forum, and I know that I'm not going to undertake it. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't been explicitly asked for my opinion -- and if asked to back it up, I'm going to respond that I don't think it merits the time to do so.

So take Derrida, one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be able to understand his Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was, failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked, and therefore am answering.

Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using language that was perfectly comprehensible -- he speaking French, me English); Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because I am very remote from from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different and far broader ones --- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more names if it's not obvious.

For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest David Lodge. Pretty much on target, as far as I can judge.

Phetland also found it "particularly puzzling" that I am so "curtly dismissive" of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time "exposing the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times." So "why not give these guys the same treatment." Fair question. There are also simple answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore, there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with, and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the postmodern cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't spend any time on it.

Phetland suggests starting with Foucault --- who, as I've written repeatedly, is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I think it helps understand why I take such a "dismissive" attitude towards all of this --- in fact, pay no attention to it.

What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know -- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.

Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But the "theory" is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what many others have put very simply, and without any pretense that anything deep is involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror, "free market" scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as "theoreticians."

To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting what he sees as "important insights and theoretical constructs" that he finds in Foucault. My problem is that the "insights" seem to me familiar and there are no "theoretical constructs," except in that simple and familiar ideas have been dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I think this is "wrong, useless, or posturing." No. The historical parts look interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are not "useless," but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the very same points. As to "posturing," a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally, though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the "corruption" of this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow and (to me, at least) pretty unininteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised. When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics that don't interest me.

Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the mind of any reasonable person when claims about "theory" and "philosophy" are raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.

Johnb made the point that "plain language is not enough when the frame of reference is not available to the listener"; correct and important. But the right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and posturing about non-existent "theories." Rather, it is to ask the listener to question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken its toll. Johnb says that outside of circles like this forum, "to the rest of the country, he's incomprehensible" ("he" being me). That's absolutely counter to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is. I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I can skip lots of the background and "frame of reference" issues because it's already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.

It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's not because the ideas or language are complicated --- we have no problems in informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --- though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.

A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a striking change in the behaviour of the intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like "mathematics for the millions" (which made mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, sceptical, confused. That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous implications, in my opinion.

End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless the obvious questions are answered.

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

It's difficult to disagree with him on this.

[kalu]

Chomsky doesn't seriously engage with contemporary French philosophy. In fact, his behavior in that piece is downright childish.

Besides the gristle of ad hominems, there's very little meat. Take this little example:


that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for yearsNow, correct me if I'm wrong, but I've never heard Chomsky discuss modern versus sovereign subjectivity (Foucault) besides his shallow references to a taken-for-granted and essentialised "human nature." It's like Chomsky is intentionally trying to misunderstand the man. Also, why do "pomo" philosophers get tarred with the "obscurantist" branch, when I can't properly understand David Lewis or Saul Kripke without serious research? My point is that there are few if any philosophers who are "charlatans" because it requires a great deal of time, effort, and criticism to even make it past a Ph.D. (or Ecole Normale Superior, or whatever). These ideas are part of a professional conversation that Chomsky can by all means choose to ignore. But to waffle on without even having seriously studied and understood what so many thousands of others have (even us poor brown folk, Mr. Chomsky), in the name of saving the oppressed from BIG WORDS, is downright intellectual dishonesty.

I am so sick of seeing people post "Chomsky's remarks on postmodernism." That is the brown-paper-poop-bag-lit-on-fire of internet discussions about current philosophy.

[Hyacinth]

kalu, the charge against much contemporary continental philosophy (and even contemporary analytic philosophy, it is far from immune from this criticism) isn't only that it is obscure or difficult to read. While that is certainly a stylistic sin indicative of bad writing, the claim isn't merely that these works are inaccessible because they are badly written, rather that they are incomprehensible because they are nonsensical. I doubt that any of these thinkers were self-consciously charlatans, which is all the worse as it means that they managed to convince themselves of the significance of their empty verbiage.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


Chomsky doesn't seriously engage with contemporary French philosophy. In fact, his behavior in that piece is downright childish.

I disagree; it is indeed what I'd conclude about French 'Philosophy'.


Besides the gristle of ad hominems, there's very little meat. Take this little example:

From this it is clear that you have confused 'ad hominem' with 'personal attack'; the two are not at all the same. You are not alone in this, most people are confused on this too:

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html


Also, why do "pomo" philosophers get tarred with the "obscurantist" branch, when I can't properly understand David Lewis or Saul Kripke without serious research? My point is that there are few if any philosophers who are "charlatans" because it requires a great deal of time, effort, and criticism to even make it past a Ph.D. (or Ecole Normale Superior, or whatever). These ideas are part of a professional conversation that Chomsky can by all means choose to ignore. But to waffle on without even having seriously studied and understood what so many thousands of others have (even us poor brown folk, Mr. Chomsky), in the name of saving the oppressed from BIG WORDS, is downright intellectual dishonesty.

Sure, there are plenty of examples of Analytic Philosophy that are hard to understand without a knowledge of modern logic and mathematics, but there are plenty of examples where this is not so.

Now, I have yet to read a single example of French 'Philosophy' that is comprehensible whatever one does with it. And, it looks like Chomsky is in the same boat, too.


I am so sick of seeing people post "Chomsky's remarks on postmodernism." That is the brown-paper-poop-bag-lit-on-fire of internet discussions about current philosophy.

Not one half as sick as those of us who reject the obscure, a priori and dogmatic waffle one finds in French 'Philosophy'.

[Post-Something]

What Chomskys written on the subject misses the point 180 degrees in my opinion.

Derrida, for example, isn't meant to be understood. That's the whole point of what he's doing. He rejects the idea that his work can be encapsulated in theses. The distinction between how a word is used in speech, and how it is written, is key to what Derrida is talking about. Once a word is placed into written form, it becomes much more impersonal, and he takes the written word and puts it in the most outlandish context, disposes of it's "voice", and in doing so, shows the distance between these two forms of communication. What I think this is meant to show is probably much more powerful when you agree that language can't be private. Then you see how difficult it is for the subject to really express itself. So what he's doing seems to be, almost anti philosophy, and the way he goes about doing it, especially his earlier stuff, kind of reminds me of Wittgenstein.

That's my take on it anyway, I'm not sure if I fully understand it. All I'm saying is that Chomsky's article is sort of ignoring the whole point of the work of people like Derrida, simply because it goes against something which Philosophy has done for centuries (namely trying to clarify words, rather than distort them on purpose).

[Hyacinth]

What Chomskys written on the subject misses the point 180 degrees in my opinion.

Derrida, for example, isn't meant to be understood. That's the whole point of what he's doing. He rejects the idea that his work can be encapsulated in theses. The distinction between how a word is used in speech, and how it is written, is key to what Derrida is talking about. Once a word is placed into written form, it becomes much more impersonal, and he takes the written word and puts it in the most outlandish context, disposes of it's "voice", and in doing so, shows the distance between these two forms of communication. What I think this is meant to show is probably much more powerful when you agree that language can't be private. Then you see how difficult it is for the subject to really express itself. So what he's doing seems to be, almost anti philosophy, and the way he goes about doing it, especially his earlier stuff, kind of reminds me of Wittgenstein.

That's my take on it anyway, I'm not sure if I fully understand it. All I'm saying is that Chomsky's article is sort of ignoring the whole point of the work of people like Derrida, simply because it goes against something which Philosophy has done for centuries (namely trying to clarify words, rather than distort them on purpose).
So basically Derrida's work is intentionally—to paraphrase Schopenhauer on Hegel—a colossal piece of mystification that outrageously misuses language, and puts in the place of our ordinary usages the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage. If philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday, how is taking it on holiday suppose to be of any assistance to us at all? How is creating conceptual confusions useful?

Derrida's work, insofar as it is, by your concession, intentionally nonsensical (given that it outright deviates from our ordinary usage, which is not in itself sufficient to make it nonsense, but it provides us with no explanation of meaning it lieu of ordinary meaning) can't say anything. But, so too, nor can is show us anything either; except perhaps the charlatanism of its speaker.

Far from undermining metaphysics (which is itself a result of conceptual confusions) the creation of further conceptual confusion can only help foster it. So inasmuch as Chomsky is dismissive and disdainful of Derrida's obfuscative enterprise, he's absolutely right to be. It is not, and cannot be, of assistance to us either philosophically (in helping us rid ourselves of conceptual confusions) nor politically.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


So what he's doing seems to be, almost anti philosophy, and the way he goes about doing it, especially his earlier stuff, kind of reminds me of Wittgenstein.

It's nothing like Wittgenstein. He spent much of the latter part of his life trying to expose the gobbledygook one finds in Derrida & Co as so much hot air.

Except, he was far more polite about it. Chomsky isn't. I'm with Chomsky.

[Post-Something]

So basically Derrida's work is intentionally—to paraphrase Schopenhauer on Hegel—a colossal piece of mystification that outrageously misuses language, and puts in the place of our ordinary usages the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage. If philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday, how is taking it on holiday suppose to be of any assistance to us at all? How is creating conceptual confusions useful?

Derrida's work, insofar as it is, by your concession, intentionally nonsensical (given that it outright deviates from our ordinary usage, which is not in itself sufficient to make it nonsense, but it provides us with no explanation of meaning it lieu of ordinary meaning) can't say anything. But, so too, nor can is show us anything either; except perhaps the charlatanism of its speaker.

Far from undermining metaphysics (which is itself a result of conceptual confusions) the creation of further conceptual confusion can only help foster it. So inasmuch as Chomsky is dismissive and disdainful of Derrida's obfuscative enterprise, he's absolutely right to be. It is not, and cannot be, of assistance to us either philosophically (in helping us rid ourselves of conceptual confusions) nor politically.

Erm...no, maybe I wasn't clear in my previous post. I'll try again, but before I start let me just say that Derrida often doesn't even see himself as a philosopher, so it's useless to level an argument against him from that perspective. Also, if my post is in any way innaccurate as to Derridas' views, somebody should jump in to correct me, because I'm not even sure if I've grasped the basics:

Derrida is proposing that writing is a very different realm from spoken word. What you say is very different from what you write, and Derrida accounts for this by showing written language to have a different value to spoken language; via deconstruction. Derrida does this because he doesn't think our actual consciousness is able to attribute the meaning and truth, since the meaning of a word is far more dependant on the structure of the language as a whole, especially when written down, rather than what you actually intend. When you speak, you are able to justify the meanings you intend through your mere presence (body motions, reclarification etc), but when written down, these words lose the ability to be clarified, and thus are more obviously subject to the workings and mutations of language itself.

Derrida shows how this is actually a problem by getting lots of examples of how the word (any word, or sentance) is used throughout history, how it's changed its meaning throughout history, how it's used in different contexts etc; thus putting it as far away from the original author as possible, and subjecting it to the laws of written language.

This sounds like a very trivial pursuit when applied to words like "car" or "revleft", but fundamental words in philosophy, such as "subject", "existence", "duty", "responsibility" etc, can be shown to have changed over time. This is especially important when it comes to the older philosophers. For example, nobody really knows what the ancient Greek word "pharmakon" means, because it has changed so much over time, yet it is used in Platos works on different occassions, with seemingly different meanings. This is how Derrida comes to the conclusion that word sort of already deconstruct themselves, by already being overloaded with so many meanings.

The thing is, later, Derrida just decided to actually speed up the deconstruction process, and apply it to himself. His own work becomes absolutely unintelligable, and he uses this confusion to shape it in a way that produces empty, rhetorical, sneering jestures at its readers. It's not that Chomsky is missing something, or that people aren't intelligent enough to get it. There is nothing to get. He is merely highlighting the fact that language deconstructs itself over time, and that we should be weary enough of this process.

[black magick hustla]

So basically he ripped off from later Wittgenstein but added unnecessary verbiage by making the whole idea incomprehensible. Can you tell me if there is anything I can learn from him that hasn't been said before in clearer terms?


Derrida just decided to actually speed up the deconstruction process, and apply it to himself. His own work becomes absolutely unintelligable, and he uses this confusion to shape it in a way that produces empty, rhetorical, sneering jestures at its reader
That is just called trolling. It has always been my hypothesis french philosophy is just some crazy attempt at massive trolling. They certainly trolled the leftists and the rightists and now everybody is mad. I more of the internet type though.

[Hyacinth]

Erm...no, maybe I wasn't clear in my previous post.
No, your post was perfectly clear. It is just that from the explanation that you give of Derrida (which I don't think inaccurate) it follows that he was a charlatan. It isn't that you're failing to properly explain Derrida, you're doing an excellent job of it, it is rather that Derrida is just, as you yourself go on to say, unintelligible.

For a more detailed criticism of Derrida people might be interested to look at John Searle's review of Derrida. Unfortunately the original review is inaccessible without registering, but the response to the review by a defender of Derrida, followed by a counter-response by Searle can be found here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5964


The thing is, later, Derrida just decided to actually speed up the deconstruction process, and apply it to himself. His own work becomes absolutely unintelligable, and he uses this confusion to shape it in a way that produces empty, rhetorical, sneering jestures at its readers. It's not that Chomsky is missing something, or that people aren't intelligent enough to get it. There is nothing to get. He is merely highlighting the fact that language deconstructs itself over time, and that we should be weary enough of this process.
The way we use, and hence the meaning of, words changes over time. This is suppose to be Derrida's great contribution to our knowledge and understanding? Who, pray tell, does Derrida think didn't know this already? If this is the trivial point that Derrida is trying to make then he has wasted a lot of ink and paper (think of all those wasted trees that go into the printing of his books). The point is so trivial as to hardly be worth saying.

And, if anything, this explanation of yours of Derrida's views proves Chomsky's point, when he says (using Foucault as an example):



What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant, because everyone always knew it --- apart from details of social and intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it, without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know -- this comes up a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the "theoretical constructs" and the explanations: that there has been "a great change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which people come to do" what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a "theory," then all the criticisms of me are wrong: I have a "theory" too, since I've been saying exactly that for years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who understood all of this well -- called "controlling the public mind." The reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that "the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers" relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these truisms should suddenly become "a theory" or "philosophy," others will have to explain; Hume would have laughed.
Just as Hume would have laughed as Foucault, we all have even more cause to laugh at Derrida, if it was news to him that the meaning of words changes over time.

[GPDP]

I, for one, like the idea of French philosophy being an academic case of massive IRL trolling.

[black magick hustla]

I, for one, like the idea of French philosophy being an academic case of massive IRL trolling.

i liked more the dadaists. they caused riots and pulled their dicks out and called for a "final dissolution" and wrote beautiful strings of nonsense.

[black magick hustla]

Just as Hume would have laughed as Foucault, we all have even more cause to laugh at Derrida, if it was news to him that the meaning of words changes over time.

To be fair.

Maybe it is obvious, but people tend to forget. Just ask every conservative statesman.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


The thing is, later, Derrida just decided to actually speed up the deconstruction process, and apply it to himself. His own work becomes absolutely unintelligable, and he uses this confusion to shape it in a way that produces empty, rhetorical, sneering jestures at its readers. It's not that Chomsky is missing something, or that people aren't intelligent enough to get it. There is nothing to get. He is merely highlighting the fact that language deconstructs itself over time, and that we should be weary enough of this process.

In that case, he is just parodying himself. But, this has no effect on our use of language.

And, if you understand me, then that merely proves my point.

On the other hand, if you do not, then the same conclusion results, too, since you must at least have understood this sentence.

Either way, language is alright as it is, to paraphrase Wittgenstein.

[Post-Something]

No, your post was perfectly clear. It is just that from the explanation that you give of Derrida (which I don't think inaccurate) it follows that he was a charlatan. It isn't that you're failing to properly explain Derrida, you're doing an excellent job of it, it is rather that Derrida is just, as you yourself go on to say, unintelligible.

For a more detailed criticism of Derrida people might be interested to look at John Searle's review of Derrida. Unfortunately the original review is inaccessible without registering, but the response to the review by a defender of Derrida, followed by a counter-response by Searle can be found here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5964


The way we use, and hence the meaning of, words changes over time. This is suppose to be Derrida's great contribution to our knowledge and understanding? Who, pray tell, does Derrida think didn't know this already? If this is the trivial point that Derrida is trying to make then he has wasted a lot of ink and paper (think of all those wasted trees that go into the printing of his books). The point is so trivial as to hardly be worth saying.

And, if anything, this explanation of yours of Derrida's views proves Chomsky's point, when he says (using Foucault as an example):

Just as Hume would have laughed as Foucault, we all have even more cause to laugh at Derrida, if it was news to him that the meaning of words changes over time.

Ok, fair point. I don't necessarilly agree with Derrida by the way, (I don't really have an opinion on this at all) I just think somebody should at least play devils advocate, since he is very often misrepresented. So, I'll respond with a devils advocate response:

Derridas' idea here is important because of its implications. Since significations aren't present in written language, and there is "nothing outside of text", and a private language doesn't exist, and we have no real control of how we are to be interpreted, how much can we really know about ourselves? How much can we actually comment about ourselves? How come we infer one meaning over another?

Say for example, you are to write a biography about some basically unknown philosopher, or political figure. Lets say Marl Karx just for fun. You went around his old place, took out his old diaries, did lots of interviews with his friends etc. You are bound to interpret some of this information wrongly, or present something incorrectly. But whatever you write will become Marl Karx as we know him, since you were probably the first to do an extensive biography on him. The words that you use will be cited, a lot of the time out of context, and the meaning of the words you use will change. If Marl gets big enough, his work will need to be translated.

It's a very simple process, but it's one that's been overlooked throughout history, and seems to cause problems. As I've said above, the word pharmakon can be used to mean both poison and cure for example.

Actually, just for fun, I'll try and deconstruct your last sentance:

"Just as Hume would have laughed as Foucault, we all have even more cause to laugh at Derrida, if it was news to him that the meaning of words changes over time."

Like Hume would have laughed like Foucault, the very being of Derrida is funny enough for everyone in the world to find him funnier than average funny, If Derrida previously hadn't known that the intention of words morph on top of time.

Ok, that was terrible, and I only did it for myself really, but seriously, Deconstruction does have some serious uses. For example:



Legal distinctions are often disguised forms of conceptual
oppositions, because they treat things within a legal category
differently from those outside the category. One can use
deconstructive arguments to attack categorical distinctions in law
by showing that the justifications for the distinction undermine
themselves, that categorical boundaries are unclear, or that these
boundaries shift radically as they are placed in new contexts of
judgment.

Or even more relevent to this board:


Perhaps the most important use of deconstruction in legal
scholarship has been as a method of ideological critique.
Deconstruction is useful here because ideologies often operate by
privileging certain features of social life while suppressing or
deemphasizing others. Deconstructive analyses look for what is
deemphasized, overlooked, or suppressed in a particular way of
thinking or in a particular set of legal doctrines. Sometimes they
explore how suppressed or marginalized principles return in new
guises. For example, where a field of law is thought to be
organized around a dominant principle, the deconstructor looks for
exceptional or marginal counterprinciples that have an
unacknowledged significance, and which, if taken seriously, might
displace the dominant principle.

So, in answer to you, even if everyone knew it, that doesn't mean it wasn't useful to think strongly about it. I mean, we all know that we are always conscious of something, that's obvious, so is it a stupid step to study our own consciousness through phenomenology?


So basically he ripped off from later Wittgenstein but added unnecessary verbiage by making the whole idea incomprehensible. Can you tell me if there is anything I can learn from him that hasn't been said before in clearer terms?

Well, he did get a lot from Wittgenstein, but then, who didn't in philosophy of language? He acknowledges him amongst many other thinkers. He definitely is doing something completely different to Wittgenstein though, as I've noted above. The reason for unnecessary verbiage? I have no idea, I hate it more than anybody. To be fair though, most philosophers do it to some degree, but I guess you can't really take away from the idea based on that. Also, to present something in academia these days, you really have to cover yourself on so many grounds it's insane. Imagine all the schools of thought attacking him and asking him to differentiate etc. Whether or not theres anthing you can learn I'm not really sure. Derridas theories aren't really useful unless you're looking at a text, unless you're doing some sort of literary criticism, or are trying to understand the possible meanings an author could have attached.

[Post-Something]

Post-Something:

And, if you understand me, then that merely proves my point.

On the other hand, if you do not, then the same conclusion results, too, since you must at least have understood this sentence.

Not really, since the amount of time between you posting, and me reading was 8 minutes ;)

[Calmwinds]

I take the position of Rorty, though I think Sokal and Chomsky are right about Derrida.


When discussing Derrida, Rorty claims that Derrida is most useful when viewed as a funny writer who attempted to circumvent the Western philosophical tradition, rather than the inventor of a philosophical "method." In this vein, Rorty criticizes Derrida's followers like Paul De Man for taking deconstructive literary theory too seriously.

[Hyacinth]

Ok, fair point. I don't necessarilly agree with Derrida by the way, (I don't really have an opinion on this at all) I just think somebody should at least play devils advocate, since he is very often misrepresented. So, I'll respond with a devils advocate response:
Fair enough, I also quite enjoy playing Devil's advocate. And don't take the criticisms here as indicative of your inability to articulate Derrida's ideas, I think you're undertaking a Sisyphian task in trying to defend the undefinable.


Derridas' idea here is important because of its implications. Since significations aren't present in written language, and there is "nothing outside of text", and a private language doesn't exist, and we have no real control of how we are to be interpreted, how much can we really know about ourselves? How much can we actually comment about ourselves? How come we infer one meaning over another?

Say for example, you are to write a biography about some basically unknown philosopher, or political figure. Lets say Marl Karx just for fun. You went around his old place, took out his old diaries, did lots of interviews with his friends etc. You are bound to interpret some of this information wrongly, or present something incorrectly. But whatever you write will become Marl Karx as we know him, since you were probably the first to do an extensive biography on him. The words that you use will be cited, a lot of the time out of context, and the meaning of the words you use will change. If Marl gets big enough, his work will need to be translated.
But it's simply false that we have "nothing outside of [the] text" to go on when it comes to understanding and interpreting a work. You go on in the next paragraph to give examples of the sort of information that we can draw on in our effort to correctly interpret the works of some figure.

Derrida, it strikes me, overemphasized problems associated with correct interpretation. While it is true that there are instances where we cannot be sure that we are understanding someone's text as they intended it to be understood, most of the time this isn't an issue if the author is clear, and if we are familiar with their use of language. Let's run with your example of Marx, in fact, as I think it a good one. Marx has certainly been misinterpreted, I would argue, and Rosa has certainly presented persuasive arguments to this effects re: dialectics. But it is also true in the case of many other expressions used by Marx, e.g., "the dictatorship of the proletariat". The term "dictatorship" carries with it today certain connotations that it did not in Marx's time, not to mention that the expression has also been intentionally misinterpreted and employed as propaganda against socialism by the ruling class. But, armed with a relatively simple understanding of the context in which Marx was writing, as well as some history of the (mis)use of the expression, we can come to a better understanding of what Marx has in mind (on that note, Hal Draper's Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution is an absolutely fantastic exegetical work that presents Marx's ideas to a contemporary audience in contemporary terms).


It's a very simple process, but it's one that's been overlooked throughout history, and seems to cause problems. As I've said above, the word pharmakon can be used to mean both poison and cure for example.

Actually, just for fun, I'll try and deconstruct your last sentance:

"Just as Hume would have laughed as Foucault, we all have even more cause to laugh at Derrida, if it was news to him that the meaning of words changes over time."

Like Hume would have laughed like Foucault, the very being of Derrida is funny enough for everyone in the world to find him funnier than average funny, If Derrida previously hadn't known that the intention of words morph on top of time.

Ok, that was terrible, and I only did it for myself really, but seriously, Deconstruction does have some serious uses.
Yes, that was terrible—taking a clear sentence and turning it into something quite convoluted and unclear.

The other examples you cite are more interesting, but I fail to see how creating the sorts of conceptual confusions which Derrida's approach is prone to, and in fact consists in, can help us accomplish the task of analyzing bourgeois legal relations. In fact, I would say, it isn't deconstruction that is called for here, but analysis. As well as an empirical investigation into the complex relation between the capitalist mode of production and how it manifests itself in legal relations.


So, in answer to you, even if everyone knew it, that doesn't mean it wasn't useful to think strongly about it. I mean, we all know that we are always conscious of something, that's obvious, so is it a stupid step to study our own consciousness through phenomenology?
The problem with Derrida isn't that (of what he says that is worth saying) he says something trivial, it is that he pretentiously presents it as something profound.

As for phenomenology, we shouldn't study consciousness (or anything else for that matter) through it as it is itself based on numerous conceptual confusions, the most grievous of which is perhaps its commitment to private language.

[Post-Something]

Fair enough, I also quite enjoy playing Devil's advocate. And don't take the criticisms here as indicative of your inability to articulate Derrida's ideas, I think you're undertaking a Sisyphian task in trying to defend the undefinable.


But it's simply false that we have "nothing outside of [the] text" to go on when it comes to understanding and interpreting a work. You go on in the next paragraph to give examples of the sort of information that we can draw on in our effort to correctly interpret the works of some figure.

Derrida, it strikes me, overemphasized problems associated with correct interpretation. While it is true that there are instances where we cannot be sure that we are understanding someone's text as they intended it to be understood, most of the time this isn't an issue if the author is clear, and if we are familiar with their use of language. Let's run with your example of Marx, in fact, as I think it a good one. Marx has certainly been misinterpreted, I would argue, and Rosa has certainly presented persuasive arguments to this effects re: dialectics. But it is also true in the case of many other expressions used by Marx, e.g., "the dictatorship of the proletariat". The term "dictatorship" carries with it today certain connotations that it did not in Marx's time, not to mention that the expression has also been intentionally misinterpreted and employed as propaganda against socialism by the ruling class. But, armed with a relatively simple understanding of the context in which Marx was writing, as well as some history of the (mis)use of the expression, we can come to a better understanding of what Marx has in mind (on that note, Hal Draper's Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution is an absolutely fantastic exegetical work that presents Marx's ideas to a contemporary audience in contemporary terms).


Yes, that was terrible—taking a clear sentence and turning it into something quite convoluted and unclear.

The other examples you cite are more interesting, but I fail to see how creating the sorts of conceptual confusions which Derrida's approach is prone to, and in fact consists in, can help us accomplish the task of analyzing bourgeois legal relations. In fact, I would say, it isn't deconstruction that is called for here, but analysis. As well as an empirical investigation into the complex relation between the capitalist mode of production and how it manifests itself in legal relations.


The problem with Derrida isn't that (of what he says that is worth saying) he says something trivial, it is that he pretentiously presents it as something profound.

As for phenomenology, we shouldn't study consciousness (or anything else for that matter) through it as it is itself based on numerous conceptual confusions, the most grievous of which is perhaps its commitment to private language.


Yeah, actually, I almost completely agree with you. The only thing I'd say is that Derrida thinks of "text" as something more universal when he says that quote. Apart from that, the example you gave of Marxs dictatorship of the proletariat is a prime example, and that terms only been going around for like 150 years. Imagine the kind of distortions they would find in religious texts, constitutions, historical records, which have been central to societies for hundreds of years, or any other old text for that matter.

I think it's a very boring topic, and I'm very surprised that it's managed to raise the eyebrows of people in so many other fields. People seem to be applying his work to everything, yet it's only real use is analysing ancient texts and wading through legal jibberish; which, to his credit, was the bulk of his work as far as I can tell. He does have some interesting social psychology to back it up I think, behind how society and culture can centralize meaning in language. But even then, it's micro level stuff.

Actually, there is one other use for deconstruction, which in retrospect, is probably the most useful - philosophically speaking. If you look at any theory, you can take it's basic tennents and mix and match its fundamental "binary dualisms" to present an alternative version of the theory, from perspective of the marginalized. The kind of ideas that this could generate would be like Nietzsches' re interpretation of Schopenhauer, or Sartres' definition of nothingness, if done right. But yeah, I'm not sure how exactly he would propose doing that..

[Hyacinth]

Yeah, actually, I almost completely agree with you. The only thing I'd say is that Derrida thinks of "text" as something more universal when he says that quote. Apart from that, the example you gave of Marxs dictatorship of the proletariat is a prime example, and that terms only been going around for like 150 years. Imagine the kind of distortions they would find in religious texts, constitutions, historical records, which have been central to societies for hundreds of years, or any other old text for that matter.
It's interesting that you flag the fact that Derrida uses "text" in an extended sense, as I think this a perfect example of where such nonsense can be harmful. Given that many who are engaged in this deconstruction enterprise, following Derrida, similarly employ "text" in this extended sense, and make nonsensical claims such as "the world is a text" and things of this sort. Thinking of the world in this way is bound to lead one into further and further confusion and error. It is, at best, a metaphor carried far too far.


I think it's a very boring topic, and I'm very surprised that it's managed to raise the eyebrows of people in so many other fields. People seem to be applying his work to everything, yet it's only real use is analysing ancient texts and wading through legal jibberish; which, to his credit, was the bulk of his work as far as I can tell. He does have some interesting social psychology to back it up I think, behind how society and culture can centralize meaning in language. But even then, it's micro level stuff.
I'd be perfectly happy to leave Derrida and his ilk to the ruling class, or even to academics who engage in mental masturbation. What's harmful about this nonsense is that you have some on the left who sympathize with it, who in turn are giving all of us on the left a bad name. The association of Marxism with this (and other) gibberish is something that we must seek to break.


Actually, there is one other use for deconstruction, which in retrospect, is probably the most useful - philosophically speaking. If you look at any theory, you can take it's basic tennents and mix and match its fundamental "binary dualisms" to present an alternative version of the theory, from perspective of the marginalized. The kind of ideas that this could generate would be like Nietzsches' re interpretation of Schopenhauer, or Sartres' definition of nothingness, if done right. But yeah, I'm not sure how exactly he would propose doing that..
I'm afraid I'm not seeing how deconstruction has anything to do with the examples you've given. Nor am I clear on what "binary dualisms" are.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


Not really, since the amount of time between you posting, and me reading was 8 minutes

Ok, but I fail to see the relevance.

[RHIZOMES]

I will readily admit I am not an expert, but I will say I have read enough in and outside of the classroom to believe that the line postmodernism is "agnosticism" or "relativism" is total bullshit.

Depending on which author you're talking about (and believe me, the so-called postmodernists don't readily submit to any collective definition), that author is performing a complex assault on Western metaphysics. Take Derrida, for example: Derrida challenges the Western "metaphysics of presence" that proposes a stable meaning between signifier and signified (roughly correlates to "word" and "idea"). Derrida instead proposes a series of terms to put this "presence" under erasure: arche, supplement, trace, differance. Derrida in turn attempts to show how within a supposedly "unified" text, a series of hierarchical oppositions can undo, or "deconstruct," that text. For example, "nature" and "culture" in Rousseau's An Essay on the Origin of Languages. While this may seem like pure literary arcanum, it is in fact extremely relevant to a Marxist politics that overcomes empiricist tautologies, like trying to oppose an "economic base" to a "cultural superstructure." Gayatri Spivak offers a damning verdict on those who choose to ignore both Derrida and Marx's dislocation of the subject in her article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

Let's take another author though, just so we can bid this extremely stupid remark ("pomo is relativism!!!") adieu: Michel Foucault. Foucault, as Spivak herself has pointed out, is a brilliant thinker of "power-in-spacing." Meaning, where Marx has focused on macrological analyses, Foucault has focused on the "microphysics of power." Take his analyses of the prison system, the birth of medicine, and so on. These analyses also employ nontraditional forms of historical temporality, such as genealogy (taken from Nietzsche), which allows us to examine how our very analytical categories are produced in the disciplinary society we are critiquing. Finally, Foucault's concept of discourse is a critical term for understanding power relationships not accounted for in traditional Marxism, like Orientalism.

In sum, what many of you have been chiding as "agnosticism" and "relativism" is but a continuation of the continental trend in philosophy, which began with the estimable Edmund Husserl. "Pomo" works are part of a critical engagement with, and "deconstruction" of, Western metaphysics that are caricatured (not explained) by the usual "pomo is obscurantist nonsense." As Derrida once put it, we must continually return to the transcendental question in order to avoid falling into a naive empiricism. In this regard, these philosophers have done quite well exposing such traps.

In addition, and in stark contrast to many of their analytic peers, these philosophers have also focused on social transformation and practice, and thus they have a clear relevance to Marxist struggle. It would be foolish to ignore, rather than critically engage with and incorporate, their accomplishments.

I agree with this (although I am not familiar with Derrida yet), I think there's a huge anti-intellectual strain to this entire thread (DURR ONLY MARXISM CAN TELL US ANYTHING), although I think you're only focusing on the good thinkers in "post-modernism". Foucault was involved in the May 68 uprisings for instance and had a great respect for Marx and much of Foucault's analysis on power relations can be beneficial for a Marxist to learn. But there are other post-modern thinkers who do actually write lots of obscurantist bullshit (and often distort superior thinkers like Foucault to an ultrarelativistic extreme). Just google terms like "liquid modernity" and "reflexive modernisation" to see what I mean. :lol:

[bricolage]

and much of Foucault's analysis on power relations can be beneficial for a Marxist to learn.

I'd agree with this. In a historical sense it is relevant in assessing the 'dark side', so to speak, of the Enlightenment and the emergence of a carceral state but also in a theoretical sense looking at the nature of power today. First of all looking at power as constuctive in the sense of creating categories and ideas of what is 'normal' in order to exclude those that do not fit in and order as obtained through separation of individuals and homogenisation of activity must be considered when rejecting the idea that power can only be repressive. It's also worth remembering how he used this to draw links between the institutions of society;


Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons?

Foucaults arguments about networks of power right down to the 'microphysics' are also relevant to revolutionary politics highlighting that the collapse of 'centres' of power (the state, capitalism) would not necessarily bring emancipation everywhere, you have to challenge power at all levels of society, specifically in the in built relations and ideas of normality it creates, challenging patriarchy here springs to mind. Foucault also expresses this in terms in strategy;


It seems to me that the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticise the workings of institutions, which appear to be both neutral and independent; to criticise and attack them in such a manner that the political violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.

This critique and this fight seem essential to me for different reasons: firstly, because political power goes much deeper than one suspects; there are centres and invisible, little-known points of support; its true resistance, its true solidity is perhaps where one doesn't expect it. Probably it's insufficient to say that behind the governments, behind the apparatus of the State, there is the dominant class; one must locate the point of activity, the places and forms in which its domination is exercised. And because this domination is not simply the expression in political terms of economic exploitation, it is its instrument and, to a large extent, the condition which makes it possible; the suppression of the one is achieved through the exhaustive discernment of the other. Well, if one fails to recognise these points of support of class power, one risks allowing them to continue to exist; and to see this class power reconstitute itself even after an apparent revolutionary process.

Todd May takes an interesting approach when he tries to merge this with anarchism, arguing its simularity to people like Kropotkin who spoke of power as a space/network of "disorderly and incoherent movement";


Anarchist political intervention issues from a recognition of the network character of relationships of power and of the variety of intertwined but irreducible oppressions that devolve upon these relationships.

Additionally I feel the idea of power exercised through exclusion bears some similarity to Situationist thought where the spectacle is used to relegate potentially radical or critical humans to the margins of thought and behaviour not be repressive force but mesmering society with the spectacle itself;


The very principle of the spectacle is nonintervention.

Furthermore this links into Foucauldian ideas of power and entering into every aspect of life;


The space of everyday life is encircled by every form of conditioning.

[Both quotes from the Situationist International Anthology]

However I do feel there are two problems here;

1. When May tries to create post-structuralist anarchism he does so by showing the similarity of Foucauldian power analysis to previous anarchist conceptions. This then begs the question, so what is new? Seeing as I never finished his book I haven't worked that out yet :blushing:

2. In his analysis of power Foucault positions himself apart from critical theorists as while they may take a similar view to him (eg. Lukes and the three faces of power) their thought is based on the idea of future emancipation and liberation. Foucault however does not see such a possibility;


I don't believe there can ever be a society without relations of power.

Like most post-structuralist work this then enters a nihilistic pit of in that he offers much criticism but no hope of change. All he argues is that it is possible to change the manner in which power is displayed. However I do a potential way around this namely through accepting what Foucault means as power can boil down to such small things that we might call them 'good' exercises of power, I'm reminded here of Chomskys views on authority and recognising the authority of a parent to hold their childs hand as they cross the road as legitimate, or Bakunins oft quoted "in the matter of boots". I'm not sure how correct this is though, I'd be interested to hear what others think on the matter.

A final note. This does not mean I have any time for or see any thing worth salvaging from the vast amount of post-structuralist work which either turns out to be confusing for the sake of confusing or critical theory taken to ridiculous extremes to the extent that it loses all meaning as it is not applied to the theorist espousing the post-structuralist idea in the first place.

[black magick hustla]

Man, Chomsky cannot talk shit about Focault. I saw the debate and definitely Focault had the upperhand, and he was fairly lucid. Chomsky indulged in some pretty silly platonic notions of justice, human nature, etc while Focault rightly pointed out how much of our discourse on this is constrained by the language of the ruling class.

About the critique of Enlightment, it is interesting to point out that the communist left more or less partially rejected the project of enlightment when it declared the whole struggle of "democracy vs authoritarianism" senseless and the reasoning behind it as "liberal metaphysics". This was done in 1922 btw:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

[bricolage]

Man, Chomsky cannot talk shit about Focault. I saw the debate and definitely Focault had the upperhand, and he was fairly lucid. Chomsky indulged in some pretty silly platonic notions of justice, human nature, etc while Focault rightly pointed out how much of our discourse on this is constrained by the language of the ruling class. Yeah definitely, Foucault was a lot stronger in that debate mainly because as you said Chomsky keeps going on about human nature which I've got no time for. Incidentally Chomsky, after the debate, described Foucault as the most amoral person he'd ever met.
About the critique of Enlightment, it is interesting to point out that the communist left more or less partially rejected the project of enlightment when it declared the whole struggle of "democracy vs authoritarianism" senseless and the reasoning behind it as "liberal metaphysics". This was done in 1922 btw:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm Interesting stuff I'll read that later. However Habermas for example, criticises Foucault here arguing that the Enlightenment produced a 'dialectic of freedom' whereby rationalisation of the social world generated increasingly complex forms of freedom and individual empowerment as well as negative effects.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Arizona:


I agree with this (although I am not familiar with Derrida yet), I think there's a huge anti-intellectual strain to this entire thread (DURR ONLY MARXISM CAN TELL US ANYTHING), although I think you're only focusing on the good thinkers in "post-modernism". Foucault was involved in the May 68 uprisings for instance and had a great respect for Marx and much of Foucault's analysis on power relations can be beneficial for a Marxist to learn. But there are other post-modern thinkers who do actually write lots of obscurantist bullshit (and often distort superior thinkers like Foucault to an ultrarelativistic extreme). Just google terms like "liquid modernity" and "reflexive modernisation" to see what I mean.

No one here has said this:


ONLY MARXISM CAN TELL US ANYTHING

In fact, several of us have used the ideas of Wittgenstein, Frege, Kant, Aristotle, among others.

And, there is certainly no:


anti-intellectual strain to this entire thread

What we are complaining about is the substitution of gobblegygook for clear thought, and the expression of banalities (cloaked in yet more gobbledygook) as if they were either new or profound.

[Post-Something]

It's interesting that you flag the fact that Derrida uses "text" in an extended sense, as I think this a perfect example of where such nonsense can be harmful. Given that many who are engaged in this deconstruction enterprise, following Derrida, similarly employ "text" in this extended sense, and make nonsensical claims such as "the world is a text" and things of this sort. Thinking of the world in this way is bound to lead one into further and further confusion and error. It is, at best, a metaphor carried far too far.


I'd be perfectly happy to leave Derrida and his ilk to the ruling class, or even to academics who engage in mental masturbation. What's harmful about this nonsense is that you have some on the left who sympathize with it, who in turn are giving all of us on the left a bad name. The association of Marxism with this (and other) gibberish is something that we must seek to break.

Well, Derrida is maybe a bad example. If you look at the other people he's associated with, I think you can salvage at least some good new ideas. Foucault is the obvious example, but there are others like Frederic Jameson (Marxist), or Baudrillard (ex-Marxist), who's work do cover Marxist concepts in detail (commodity fetishism is a big one), that I think you might be interested in.


I'm afraid I'm not seeing how deconstruction has anything to do with the examples you've given. Nor am I clear on what "binary dualisms" are.

It's really nothing special, since I think it's a convoluted way to say what philosophers have subconsciously been doing since the begining. But Derrida says that the reason we choose to infer one meaning over another is because society sort of structures our language for us, and therefore, it's kind of political in that way. If you live in a Christian dominated society for example, it will exclude other religions, and these marginalized groups won't be represented in language as much. Think of the amount of religious words we have in use, and see how they are primarily Christian, rather than Hindu for example: Divine, trinity, sacred, holy, God, etc. There are many other examples with gender (a strange one is "History of Mankind" being His-story of Man-kind), race and class. The thing is, Derrida argues that we are only able to consciously percieve anything based on these binary distinctions, that we have no access to socialized reality appart from through these categories.

Of course, these are enforced in the obvious ways: advertising, social conventions, taboos, rituals etc. So, to counteract this, Derrida empowers the marginalized group within the text and shows the possible conflicts that could arise in taking the position of one over the other. Derridas approach has been said to work with philosophy too. Many philosophers have gotten the bulk of their theories from turning other philosophers upsidedown, you simply have to find the dualism present in their work for this to be possible.


Anyway, I'm getting slightly bored of this. Derrida is sort of a 2 or 3 day fun concept that you have dancing around in your mind for a while, but get bored of after a week. Hopefully if anyone reads this they'll at least get a gist of what Derrida is on about, and how vaccuous most of his ideas are.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something, I have just received a copy of Jameson's 'Valences of the Dialectic' (Verso, 2009) -- all 600+ pages of it --, and I am sorry to have to say that it is wall-to-wall gobbledygook. I was hoping for clarity, so that it might help me appreciate the higher end of 'theory', but no such luck.

If I hadn't paid quite so much for it, Hume's bonfire would be being called into service as we speak

[kalu]

Now, I have yet to read a single example of French 'Philosophy' that is comprehensible whatever one does with it. And, it looks like Chomsky is in the same boat, too.

That's personal opinion. Scholarly research, academic conferences, and activist conversations indicate the contrary (do journal searches for "poststructuralism," you'll get thousands of references, and whether or not they are positive or negative, most articles will be seriously engaging with the ideas). My point remains that Chomsky isn't seriously engaging with the ideas, as I pointed out in my discussion of "modern versus sovereign subjectivity." You may dismiss pomo out of hand, but at least recognize how unfair that gesture is, relying upon a cursory judgment of the type of language you find distasteful rather than engaging with the actual arguments and engaging them on their terms (which of course, requires genuine study and research; "what have you read of or about Derrida?")


I agree with this (although I am not familiar with Derrida yet), I think there's a huge anti-intellectual strain to this entire thread (DURR ONLY MARXISM CAN TELL US ANYTHING), although I think you're only focusing on the good thinkers in "post-modernism".

I of course have problems with "pomo gone wild" (ie. Baudrillard) and some theorists' complicity with imperialism (see Spivak on Deleuze and Foucault), but my defense may seem less equivocal just because there has been such a sharp reaction against ANY of the insights of "pomo" in this thread.

EDIT: Reading over some of the posts in this thread, such as Post_Something's admirable attempt to explain Derrida's project though I disagree with parts, I think it would be good to start a "poststructuralism study group" thread. I get the feeling most people in this thread are warming up to the idea of at the very least exploring these ideas, even if they initially disagree.

[Hyacinth]

That's personal opinion. Scholarly research, academic conferences, and activist conversations indicate the contrary (do journal searches for "poststructuralism," you'll get thousands of references, and whether or not they are positive or negative, most articles will be seriously engaging with the ideas). My point remains that Chomsky isn't seriously engaging with the ideas, as I pointed out in my discussion of "modern versus sovereign subjectivity." You may dismiss pomo out of hand, but at least recognize how unfair that gesture is, relying upon a cursory judgment of the type of language you find distasteful rather than engaging with the actual arguments and engaging them on their terms (which of course, requires genuine study and research; "what have you read of or about Derrida?"
Scholarly research, academic conferences, and [right-wing] activist conversations also occur about Austrian economics, theology, etc. Does that make any of these any less pseudo-scientific or nonsensical?

The fact that some academics are engaged in a circle jerk hardly lends credence to those ideas. I would also add, it isn't just Chomsky, Rosa, I and a few others who have attempted to engage with continental 'though' (if we can even call it that) and found it to be incomprehensible gibberish, it is the received view of pretty much the entire analytic tradition. These criticisms have been out there for years, and our fellow academics across the proverbial pond have yet to successfully respond to them, insofar as they even pay attention to them.

[black magick hustla]

To be fair I like Foucault. He isn't that hard to read either.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


That's personal opinion. Scholarly research, academic conferences, and activist conversations indicate the contrary (do journal searches for "poststructuralism," you'll get thousands of references, and whether or not they are positive or negative, most articles will be seriously engaging with the ideas). My point remains that Chomsky isn't seriously engaging with the ideas, as I pointed out in my discussion of "modern versus sovereign subjectivity." You may dismiss pomo out of hand, but at least recognize how unfair that gesture is, relying upon a cursory judgment of the type of language you find distasteful rather than engaging with the actual arguments and engaging them on their terms (which of course, requires genuine study and research; "what have you read of or about Derrida?")

As Hyacinth notes, if you were to attend a conference of theologians, you'd get the same impression, that the 'Trinity', the 'Incarnation', and the Creeds, make emminent good sense.

The story of the boy and the naked emperor strangely comes to mind here.

---------------------

Dada:


To be fair I like Foucault. He isn't that hard to read either.

So are Noddy books.

[kalu]

The fact that some academics are engaged in a circle jerk hardly lends credence to those ideas. I would also add, it isn't just Chomsky, Rosa, I and a few others who have attempted to engage with continental 'though' (if we can even call it that) and found it to be incomprehensible gibberish, it is the received view of pretty much the entire analytic tradition. These criticisms have been out there for years, and our fellow academics across the proverbial pond have yet to successfully respond to them, insofar as they even pay attention to them.

This is the frustrating thing: besides making generalizations, in your conversation with me you aren't engaging with or critiquing the specific arguments of poststructuralist authors (which ones have you read, btw? I'm not being flippant, I'm curious). I can understand if you're going to dismiss something out of hand, but why then even bother posting? Why not just ignore this entire thread? That was my previous point about Chomsky: if he doesn't "get it," why does he bother talking about it (he's implicitly saying, "I'm talking about something I have no clue about," doesn't look very good)? If you are going to make a serious attempt to "disprove" pomo arguments, you need to demonstrate an awareness and familiarity with the ideas, something I have yet to see. That's the last I'm going to say on the matter.

And I'm sorry, poststructuralism is a respected, even if hotly debated, family of theories in the social sciences and humanities. I can quickly mention my own discipline, anthropology, has been profoundly impacted by the concepts of "discourse," "textuality," "power-knowledge," and "assemblage." These ideas have affected how we construct the anthropological fieldsite through a series of cultural representations and spatializing techniques (see Appadurai; Gupta and Ferguson).

You may find some traditional academics, particularly those who defend the western canon, who feel pomo is "gibberish," but most intellectuals recognize it's here to stay and that you either have to abide by the ideas or move past them while incorporating the pomo critique (see Harvey, Jameson, Badiou, et al.). I know that's an argument from authority, but I am not deploying it to indicate the validity of pomo theories, just that the debates themselves are valid, widespread, and not to be dismissed with meaningless pieties or inane criticisms. It's like yelling an insult at a person from a speeding car, quite useless.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


if he doesn't "get it," why does he bother talking about it (he's implicitly saying, "I'm talking about something I have no clue about," doesn't look very good)? If you are going to make a serious attempt to "disprove" pomo arguments, you need to demonstrate an awareness and familiarity with the ideas, something I have yet to see. That's the last I'm going to say on the matter.

He did this because he was asked for his opinion. Like him, and I'm sure this applies to Hyacinth too, I have been asking for years for someone to tell what, if anything, is of value on this continental tradition, and I am still waiting. For all the fuss that many make of it, one would have thought that someone could tell us. After over 20 years of waiting, I think I am justified in concluding that this Emperor is indeed naked.

And theology is 'respected', too.

[kalu]

Kalu:



He did this because he was asked for his opinion. Like him, and I'm sure this applies to Hyacinth too, I have been asking for years for someone to tell what, if anything, is of value on this continental tradition, and I am still waiting. For all the fuss that many make of it, one would have thought that someone could tell us. After over 20 years of waiting, I think I am justified in concluding that this Emperor is indeed naked.

And theology is 'respected', too.

Read my first post in this thread, I explain some poststructuralist arguments and ideas. If you still don't understand we can discuss from there. But better to start from specifics, as I have attempted, rather than airy generalizations.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Kalu, so I reach for this:


Take Derrida, for example: Derrida challenges the Western "metaphysics of presence" that proposes a stable meaning between signifier and signified (roughly correlates to "word" and "idea"). Derrida instead proposes a series of terms to put this "presence" under erasure: arche, supplement, trace, differance. Derrida in turn attempts to show how within a supposedly "unified" text, a series of hierarchical oppositions can undo, or "deconstruct," that text. For example, "nature" and "culture" in Rousseau's An Essay on the Origin of Languages. While this may seem like pure literary arcanum, it is in fact extremely relevant to a Marxist politics that overcomes empiricist tautologies, like trying to oppose an "economic base" to a "cultural superstructure." Gayatri Spivak offers a damning verdict on those who choose to ignore both Derrida and Marx's dislocation of the subject in her article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

The Saussurean doctrine of 'signifier' and 'signified' you seem to take (or Derrida seems to take) for granted. This, it seems to me, reduces language to name and thing named. This in turn transforms a proposition (indicative sentence) into a list of names, threatening its unity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_the_proposition

Other expressions you use are emminently obscure: 'presence', 'under erasure', 'differance', etc.

Now, I came across these phrases as an undergraduate over 20 years ago, and when I asked what they meant, all I received by way of reply was yet more jargon, and then yet more to 'explain' that. I ended up like Chomsky, and concluded that this Emperor was indeed naked, preferring the clarity I found in Analytic Philosophy.

I had to study this continental material then, but only a loaded shotgun pointed at my head will make me return to it.

So, I won't be joining your group.

[Hyacinth]

This is the frustrating thing: besides making generalizations, in your conversation with me you aren't engaging with or critiquing the specific arguments of poststructuralist authors (which ones have you read, btw? I'm not being flippant, I'm curious). I can understand if you're going to dismiss something out of hand, but why then even bother posting? Why not just ignore this entire thread? That was my previous point about Chomsky: if he doesn't "get it," why does he bother talking about it (he's implicitly saying, "I'm talking about something I have no clue about," doesn't look very good)? If you are going to make a serious attempt to "disprove" pomo arguments, you need to demonstrate an awareness and familiarity with the ideas, something I have yet to see. That's the last I'm going to say on the matter.
Who’s dismissing anything here out of hand? I have in this very thread engaged with Post-Something’s defense of Derrida, and provided arguments as to why what Derrida says is either trivial, false, or nonsense. My rejection of much of continental philosophy is hardly out of hand, it is well considered based on engagement with the works: having found them either nonsensical, completely lacking in argument, or—when they do make some sense and contain some arguments—the arguments have been bad.

As for which post-structuralist authors I have (regrettably) read: Derrida, Foucault (who, relative to the others, is remarkably clear), and Baudrillard are the ones that I am most familiar with, with passing familiarity with others.

I should, for the record, add that the issues I find with these authors aren’t restricted to post-structuralists. Similarly shoddy writing and argumentation (when there is any) seems to be pervasive across most continental philosophy.


And I'm sorry, poststructuralism is a respected, even if hotly debated, family of theories in the social sciences and humanities. I can quickly mention my own discipline, anthropology, has been profoundly impacted by the concepts of "discourse," "textuality," "power-knowledge," and "assemblage." These ideas have affected how we construct the anthropological fieldsite through a series of cultural representations and spatializing techniques (see Appadurai; Gupta and Ferguson).

You may find some traditional academics, particularly those who defend the western canon, who feel pomo is "gibberish," but most intellectuals recognize it's here to stay and that you either have to abide by the ideas or move past them while incorporating the pomo critique (see Harvey, Jameson, Badiou, et al.). I know that's an argument from authority, but I am not deploying it to indicate the validity of pomo theories, just that the debates themselves are valid, widespread, and not to be dismissed with meaningless pieties or inane criticisms. It's like yelling an insult at a person from a speeding car, quite useless.
That academics are engaged in this debate doesn’t establish the validity of the debate, no more so than that academics are engaged in theological debates establishes the validity of these debates. That being said, I don’t think a hasty dismissal of these works as nonsense is what is called for; on the contrary, what we ought to do is demonstrate that it is nonsensical so as to, to paraphrase Kant, awaken these people from their dogmatic slumber. As well as to, more importantly, prevent people from being duped by this nonsense. Personally, I don’t have the patience to engage with these hacks; I take a look at what Rosa does here with the dialecticians and I’m in awe, it probably ought to qualify her for patron sainthood of patience. Moreover, I prefer the method of attempting to develop Marxism along scientific lines free from any of this bullshit and gibberish, in that though the successes of a scientific Marxism we can show the hollowness of these philosophical theories.

[kalu]

Responding to Rosa: I have a very rough understanding of analytic philosophy, but from what I can tell, continental and analytic philosophy go in two different directions. Whereas analytics are concerned with propositions and logical analysis, what you have described (ie. "unity of the proposition"), continental philosophy discusses semiotics. So the concern is with the sign, not propositions. I do not know how you would reconcile continental and analytic expositions on language, but the point is they are using different discourses, though certain terms may misleadingly appear interchangeable. This is kind of a roundabout way of saying: don't expect to enter modern french philosophy from analytic approaches, you have to first enter the idiom before attempting to draw on other vocabularies.

The point about Saussure's doctrine is that where he would say a sign* is a unified signifier and signified, Derrida is extending and "deconstructing" Saussure's point by saying that if the signifier is determined within a structure of differences (a signifier is composed of arbitrary phonemes), then that means the word is defined as a relation of difference, and its meaning is endlessly deferred, thus Derrida's neologism "differance." Anyways, I am not an expert on the matter, but that's my crack at it.

As for "under erasure", that just refers to the crossing out of a transcendental signified, ie. Heidegger's Being. The crossing out signifies that the word isn't completely erased (we "forget" it ever existed). Derrida enacts this procedure in order to avoid elevating a transcendental signified as his "primordial" concept. He continually puts terms he uses under erasure; so as Spivak says, in one work all he'll be talking about is differance, then in the next comes "supplement" which is a similar concept, and from there he creates a chain of terms, each one constantly put under erasure. He does this to recognize the itinerary of a "metaphysics of presence" in his own work. This might sound funny to your ear, but what can I say. Hey, you might have a crack too about what I wrote about Foucault, that has more to do with traditional Marxist (ie. historical) analysis. Otherwise, sorry to hear you won't be joining the group, no seriously. I am always interested in expanding discussions, I myself am trying to learn more about analytic philosophy, when I have time...

*I don't think you can say "sign" correlates to "name" in analytic lingo.

Response to Hyacinth:

Oh well.

[Hyacinth]

[D]on't expect to enter modern french philosophy from analytic approaches, you have to first enter the idiom before attempting to draw on other vocabularies.
That you say this—and your attempt to elaborate on and defend the Saussure's doctrine—I think perfectly illustrates the issue at hand. Namely, the charge brought against much of continental philosophy (and, for that matter, metaphysics, including analytic metaphysics) is that the terms employed are meaningless, i.e., empty. And any attempt at defining them, as you proceed to do here:

The point about Saussure's doctrine is that where he would say a sign* is a unified signifier and signified, Derrida is extending and "deconstructing" Saussure's point by saying that if the signifier is determined within a structure of differences (a signifier is composed of arbitrary phonemes), then that means the word is defined as a relation of difference, and its meaning is endlessly deferred, thus Derrida's neologism "differance."

As for "under erasure", that just refers to the crossing out of a transcendental signified, ie. Heidegger's Being. The crossing out signifies that the word isn't completely erased (we "forget" it ever existed). Derrida enacts this procedure in order to avoid elevating a transcendental signified as his "primordial" concept. He continually puts terms he uses under erasure; so as Spivak says, in one work all he'll be talking about is differance, then in the next comes "supplement" which is a similar concept, and from there he creates a chain of terms, each one constantly put under erasure. He does this to recognize the itinerary of a "metaphysics of presence" in his own work.
…simply recourses to other empty terms. As Rosa put it: when asked what these terms mean, all that we receive in response is “yet more jargon, and then yet more to 'explain' that.”

[kalu]

You just quoted me without saying anything, lol.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


I have a very rough understanding of analytic philosophy, but from what I can tell, continental and analytic philosophy go in two different directions. Whereas analytics are concerned with propositions and logical analysis, what you have described (ie. "unity of the proposition"), continental philosophy discusses semiotics. So the concern is with the sign, not propositions. I do not know how you would reconcile continental and analytic expositions on language, but the point is they are using different discourses, though certain terms may misleadingly appear interchangeable. This is kind of a roundabout way of saying: don't expect to enter modern french philosophy from analytic approaches, you have to first enter the idiom before attempting to draw on other vocabularies.

Yes, I am aware of this, but even continental philosophers have to use sentences to tell us things, and if their theory is correct, all their sentences will fall apart as lists -- and lists say nothing, no matter how well respected or adulated the person constructing them happens to be.


The point about Saussure's doctrine is that where he would say a sign* is a unified signifier and signified, Derrida is extending and "deconstructing" Saussure's point by saying that if the signifier is determined within a structure of differences (a signifier is composed of arbitrary phonemes), then that means the word is defined as a relation of difference, and its meaning is endlessly deferred, thus Derrida's neologism "differance." Anyways, I am not an expert on the matter, but that's my crack at it.

Well, this is to explain the vague by means of the obscure. Meaning cannot be endlessly 'deferred' otherwise not even Derrida would be able understand what he wrote.


As for "under erasure", that just refers to the crossing out of a transcendental signified, ie. Heidegger's Being. The crossing out signifies that the word isn't completely erased (we "forget" it ever existed). Derrida enacts this procedure in order to avoid elevating a transcendental signified as his "primordial" concept. He continually puts terms he uses under erasure; so as Spivak says, in one work all he'll be talking about is differance, then in the next comes "supplement" which is a similar concept, and from there he creates a chain of terms, each one constantly put under erasure. He does this to recognize the itinerary of a "metaphysics of presence" in his own work. This might sound funny to your ear, but what can I say. Hey, you might have a crack too about what I wrote about Foucault, that has more to do with traditional Marxist (ie. historical) analysis.

Thanks for trying but, as I predicted, here we have yet more jargon to explain the last batch. We are no nearer figuring out what these characters are banging on about.


Otherwise, sorry to hear you won't be joining the group, no seriously. I am always interested in expanding discussions, I myself am trying to learn more about analytic philosophy, when I have time.

It's just that I have absolutely no patience with what I regard a rank charlatanry (which is of absolutely no relevance to the class struggle), so there is no way I want to discuss it at any length.


*I don't think you can say "sign" correlates to "name" in analytic lingo.

And yet these signs operate as if they were referring expressions; they can't be definite descriptions, so they must be names, as I alleged.

A rose by any other name, eh?

[And a series of signs will also destroy the unity of the proposition.]

[black magick hustla]

Yes! When I was reading on Structuralists and Post-Structuralists one of the first things that struck me is that they had almost an ancient way of conceiving of meaning by just talking about "signifiers and signifieds" rather than propositions.


So are Noddy books

:shrugs: I don't see how Foucault is completely terrible. His project is similar to an aspect of marxism, which is finding the origin of ruling class ideas. What is your problem with him?

[RHIZOMES]

Like most post-structuralist work this then enters a nihilistic pit of in that he offers much criticism but no hope of change. All he argues is that it is possible to change the manner in which power is displayed. However I do a potential way around this namely through accepting what Foucault means as power can boil down to such small things that we might call them 'good' exercises of power, I'm reminded here of Chomskys views on authority and recognising the authority of a parent to hold their childs hand as they cross the road as legitimate, or Bakunins oft quoted "in the matter of boots". I'm not sure how correct this is though, I'd be interested to hear what others think on the matter.

Great post comrade, I generally agree with everything you said. That is a problem with post-structuralism and critical theory that it offers a lot of criticism and no answers (I've noticed this about what I've read on the Frankfurt School). But that doesn't mean we can't look at the criticisms and adapt it to revolutionary Marxist thought/practice. The statement you gave doesn't necessarily show the nihilism in post-structuralism and critical theory though, I'd say there would be power relations to the micro level under socialism and communism, they'd just be way less intensified since capitalism and proletarian exploitation would be taken out the picture.

[Hiero]

I disagree; it is indeed what I'd conclude about French 'Philosophy'.

What French philosophy are you acquainted with?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Dada:


His project is similar to an aspect of marxism, which is finding the origin of ruling class ideas. What is your problem with him?

Politically: his abandonment of the class struggle.

Philosophically: his tendency to advance a priori theses, like traditional philosophers have always done.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


What French philosophy are you acquainted with?

I might be tempted to answer your question when you answer the many I have asked you.

[kalu]

Great post comrade, I generally agree with everything you said. That is a problem with post-structuralism and critical theory that it offers a lot of criticism and no answers (I've noticed this about what I've read on the Frankfurt School). But that doesn't mean we can't look at the criticisms and adapt it to revolutionary Marxist thought/practice. The statement you gave doesn't necessarily show the nihilism in post-structuralism and critical theory though, I'd say there would be power relations to the micro level under socialism and communism, they'd just be way less intensified since capitalism and proletarian exploitation would be taken out the picture.

I don't think you can say there are no "answers" (though the initial question of "what is an answer" would also be worth pursuing). What about Foucauldian ethics? Anyways, poststructuralism I do not think can or should stand alone. I do think it can be combined in fruitful ways with Marxism, postcolonialism, and activist currents. Really, Laclau and Mouffe are one of the greatest examples, and political agonism might be one of the most exciting possibilities of our time.

As for Rosa, yes we've concluded you think its "charlatanry," all I'm saying is I am not familiar enough with analytic jargon to be able to explain semiotics in terms of propositions and logical analysis (I don't even know semiotics that well, I'm just trying to have a go at explaining these things with the meager learning I have acquired). I don't think you've by any means decided the issue, though it's definitely something worth thinking about.

[Hyacinth]

I am not familiar enough with analytic jargon to be able to explain semiotics in terms of propositions and logical analysis
No one is asking you to, ordinary English would suffice.

[kalu]

No one is asking you to, ordinary English would suffice.

No, Rosa actually referred to the "Unity of Propositions" (something I hadn't yet heard about; she also gave the wikipedia link), so I apparently was asked to respond using that type of vocabulary. That's been our discussion, thanks.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


No, Rosa actually referred to the "Unity of Propositions" (something I hadn't yet heard about; she also gave the wikipedia link), so I apparently was asked to respond using that type of vocabulary. That's been our discussion, thanks.

Well, this was first posed, as far as we know, by Plato (in the Sophist), and he did so in ordinary language. Moreover, the solution to this artificial 'problem' is also available in ordinary language.

On that, see here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

Use the Quick Links to go to this section:

(4) DM-Epistemology: Set In Concrete?

and subsequent sub-sections.

I trace the origin of this 'problem' in traditional thought, and the attempt made by ancient Greek thinkers to provide an a priori and dogmatic account of general terms by, among other things, inventing hierarchies of abstract terms ('Forms', 'Ideas', 'Concepts', 'Categories', 'Universals', and the like), which tactic has been emulated by the vast majority of philosophers right up to the modern day.

They do this by interpreting general words as the names of abstract particulars, reducing indicative sentences to mere lists.

Here is a summary of this argument I have posted at my site:


In ancient Greece, and for ideologically-driven reasons that will be examined in Essay Twelve (summary here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)), the idea took hold that there was an invisible, underlying structure to reality accessible to thought alone, which was in fact more real than the material world around us.

From the record it is possible to show how and why these early thinkers had to invent abstract terms to account for the structure of this unseen world, using jargon (such as "Being", "Substance", "Essence", and the like) that has entered western intellectual life ever since. [These terms should not be confused with typographically similar words found in the vernacular.]

We saw in Essay Two (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm), that dialectical Marxists are nothing if not traditionalists, keen to impose their a priori theses on nature. This has meant that this ancient approach to knowledge has also been copied by all card-carrying dialecticians: the Greek emphasis on "abstraction" aimed at uncovering "essences" by thought alone.

It is worth pointing out here that the usual philosophical justification for assuming the existence of abstractions is that they account for general features of the world, and thus for our ability to study nature. It is also worth noting that the ordinary use of abstract nouns is not being questioned here, merely their metaphysical misuse.

Linguistic Distortion

The idea that language can and has been distorted for ideological reasons, and that abstractionism is in fact at the heart of this process, is not just the invention of latter-day Wittgensteinian Marxists like myself, Marx and Engels themselves referred to it:


"The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind 'the Fruit'….

"It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, 'the Fruit.'" [Marx and Engels (1975) The Holy Family, p.75. Bold emphases added.]

"For philosophers, one of the most difficult tasks is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an independent existence, so they had to make language into an independent realm. This is the secret of philosophical language, in which thoughts in the form of words have their own content. The problem of descending from the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of descending from language to life.

"...The philosophers would only have to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, to recognise it as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]

One particular form of linguistic distortion that is relevant to the formation of Hegelian, and later 'materialist' dialectics, centres around a seemingly innocence form of indicative sentence almost exclusively found in the Indo-European family of languages. This is the subject-predicate form, and a limited sub-category even of this, too, where the copula (explained below) is a cognate of the verb "to be".

Consider an example Hegel himself used: "The rose is red". Here the subject is clearly the rose, and the predicate is what it is said to be, i.e., red. The verb "is" (this is the copula --, that is, it is a sentence connector) merely connects the two parts of the sentence. As readers will no doubt appreciate, sentences like this are used to describe things, and no one thinks for a minute there is a secret code that has been buried in such sentences by our ancestors, waiting for alert Philosophers to come along and uncover for us.

The logical form of such sentences may be expressed thus: "The F is G", or more simply "A is G", or in a more complex form, "Some F is G", "Every F is G", and so on.

[Here "F" and "G" stand for various sorts of nouns, and "A" for a proper name, say. Clearly this is to over-simplify -- but this is a summary!]

From Aristotle's time onwards it became increasingly common to interpret this sort of predication, not as "The F is G", or "A is G", but as "The F is identical with G", "A is identical with G", or as "Every A is identical with (every) G". In the Middle Ages this re-write became known as the "Identity (or Essential) Theory of Predication". This allowed Philosophers to imagine that predicates were really the names of "Universals", "Forms" or "Essences", which could be abstracted into existence in the minds of those willing to perform the trick -- and who plainly had too much leisure time on their hands than was good for them.

To cut a long story short, this is the theory that motivated Hegel (and later Heidegger and much of 'Continental Philosophy'), for it now seemed to him that no subject could be identical with the predicate to which it was related. In that case, all such sentences surreptitiously alluded to a contradiction at the heart of thought: the subject both is and is not identical to the predicate term. It never occurred to him to draw the obvious conclusion that this way of looking at this tiny (and unrepresentative) class of sentences, in a minor grammatical aspect of only one family of languages, was not perhaps a clever way of proceeding. The normal descriptive mode of predication was ignored because he wanted to find an allusion to "essences" in language to allow him to discover fundamental truths about "Being" in the comfort of his own day-dreams.

Of course, this approach to discourse had been at the heart of traditional thought since Greek times (in fact it originated in Egyptian/Babylonian myth), whereby language was seen as (or as containing a) secret code that was capable of re-presenting the inner structure of "Being" in the minds of elite thinkers. This was partly because the 'gods' themselves had called the world into existence by means of language, and they had invented language as a gift to humanity in order to re-present their thoughts to us, and partly for ideological reasons (since it allowed such theorists to connect the structure and authority of the State with the 'will of the gods').

Language was thus seen, not as a material and social product, created in and by collective labour in order to facilitate communication, but as a secret code invented by 'divine beings' to represent their thoughts to humanity (or rather to priests, kings and elite thinkers). That is why deep truths about "Being" could be ascertained by thought alone by members of this elite, and it is also why they could then be imposed on reality dogmatically.

The trick that bound all this together was the mental process of "abstraction", for this allowed traditional thinkers to access hidden, abstract ideas, inaccessible to the senses, by thought alone. This approach to knowledge has dominated Western (and, in a different, way Eastern) thought ever since. Through Hegel's influence, it now dominates the minds of dialecticians. Small wonder then Marx and Engels said the following:


"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Marx and Engels (1970) The German Ideology, pp.64-65. Bold emphases added.]

As it turns out, this ancient thought-form is in fact inimical to DM, anyway. This is because the process of abstraction radically alters key features of language, robbing indicative sentences of their capacity to say anything at all This in turn is because this process changes general terms (i.e., "universals" -- which are outwardly general in form, but which are in fact either bogus general nouns or reified 'linguistic functions') -- into abstract particulars named by abstract nouns.

[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

[A linguistic function is an expression that allows for the formation of true or false indicative sentences when combined with singular terms, quantifier expressions, and the like. For example, the sentence forming operator (i.e., quasi-linguistic expression that can be used to generate indicative sentences), "... is a socialist" yields the value "true" for "Karl Marx", but "false" for "Margaret Thatcher", or "The President of the USA in 2008". Except, linguistic functions are generally represented like this "x is a socialist". The gap marker, "x", is essential here, for by suitably defining it (in use), legitimate substitution instances may be specified clearly. An actual gap, " ", (or even "...") will not do, since, of course, gaps cannot be defined. So: " is a socialist" is no good. There is in fact no necessity to view language like this, but this way of doing so does in fact prevent the bogus moves earlier generations of Philosophers have tried to pull from being made. There is more on this in Essay Three Part One.

An abstract particular is like a real particular (such as a book or a chair), except we cannot physically interact with 'it', only think about 'it'.]

The traditional re-write of such propositions (via the Identity Theory of Predication) in fact prevents language from expressing generality, since it actually destroys predication, and turns general terms into singular expressions -- i.e., the names of abstract particulars. Naturally, this fatally undermines DM-epistemology (which at least pretends to begin with the general to give concrete substance to the particular) by destroying generality.

We can see how and why this is so, by examining Lenin's comments on an innocent-looking sentence: "John is a man"....

Unfortunately, this ancient 'analysis' turns propositions into lists of concatenated names (which somehow name these Abstract Particulars), preventing them from saying anything true or false -- because, of course, lists say nothing. By re-interpreting the "is" of predication as an "is" that names abstract identity, nothing at all can now be said of anything at all. The use of Hegel's defective logic thus denies all DM-propositions a sense, preventing them from communicating anything whatsoever. In fact, they are not even propositions.

More details here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Summary_of_Essay_Three_Part_One.htm

And in Essay Three Part One -- link above -- where the argument is worked out in extensive detail.

The same, of course, is true of the sort of things Heidegger, Saussure, Derrida..., etc. say.

The ruling ideas are in every epoch those of the ruling class...

[kalu]

The link you posted (wikipedia) had references to Donald Davidson, etc. and yes, "proposition" is part of analytic jargon. It's a complex philosophical enterprise, even "ordinary language philosophy" (frankly, I don't understand Quine, I must do more research). My point remains that this is a more technical debate than I am ready to enter.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I agree, but it is possible to express these ideas in ordinary language (as my essays show), where 'proposition' becomes 'that which is being proposed...'.

And sure this can sometimes be technical, but most, if not all of these technicalities are eliminable (again, as my essays show).

But, your comment reveals that this is not about us analytic philosophers not being able to understand 'difficult arguments', since it is now apparent that the shoe is on the other foot.

[kalu]

I have never stated or insinuated analytic philosophers can't understand "difficult arguments" (that is definitely not a quote of mine, where did you get that from?). I have said that analytic and continental philosophy are two very different enterprises though, at least in terms of jargon and types of analyses.

[RHIZOMES]

I don't think you can say there are no "answers" (though the initial question of "what is an answer" would also be worth pursuing).

An answer would be in response to this question: "How we can use all this largely abstract (at the moment) theorizing to emancipate the working class". You know, the whole Karl Marx quote about philosophers only interpreting the world, the point being to change it.


Anyways, poststructuralism I do not think can or should stand alone. I do think it can be combined in fruitful ways with Marxism, postcolonialism, and activist currents.

I agree with this. For example how Foucault's analysis of power relations and ideological discourses could be applied to analyzing how the ruling class operate (without exploiting it to an ultra-relativistic extreme like a lot of po-mos do).


Really, Laclau and Mouffe are one of the greatest examples, and political agonism might be one of the most exciting possibilities of our time.

I'm not familiar with either (I only really started seriously looking into critical theory/poststructuralism/etc due to an excellent Uni paper I took this semester with a ex-SWP Marxist lecturer explaining it all), but I looked up political agonism and it just sounds like an abandonment of proletarian class struggle to me (from the little I read). Would you be able to elaborate on why it's exciting?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


I have never stated or insinuated analytic philosophers can't understand "difficult arguments" (that is definitely not a quote of mine, where did you get that from?). I have said that analytic and continental philosophy are two very different enterprises though, at least in terms of jargon and types of analyses.

And I never said you did, but I have had other fans of 'continental philosophy' allege this of me, several times.

But, we do have this comment of yours:


Read my first post in this thread, I explain some poststructuralist arguments and ideas. If you still don't understand we can discuss from there. But better to start from specifics, as I have attempted, rather than airy generalizations.

Bold added.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1589562&postcount=51

And I agree that these are two different enterprises, but the common thread here is that both are forms of ruling class thought, expressed differently. [And, yes, this includes much of Analytic Philosophy, too.]

[Hyacinth]

No, Rosa actually referred to the "Unity of Propositions" (something I hadn't yet heard about; she also gave the wikipedia link), so I apparently was asked to respond using that type of vocabulary. That's been our discussion, thanks.
Rosa went on to elaborate on this, so I needn't go on to repeat what she has said.

But I will add that continental philosophers still fail to provide us with explanations of their jargon in ordinary language, or for that matter any language that doesn't make recourse to empty terms. While it is conceded that analytic philosophy does employ jargon, the technical language of (some) analytic philosophy is definable either in ordinary language, or else in some formal language. The contention is that the jargon of continental philosophy is not similarly definable, and that all the attempted definitions make reference to empty terms, and hence that the continental enterprise is based on nonsense, and, as such, bankrupt.

[Post-Something]

Rosa went on to elaborate on this, so I needn't go on to repeat what she has said.

But I will add that continental philosophers still fail to provide us with explanations of their jargon in ordinary language, or for that matter any language that doesn't make recourse to empty terms. While it is conceded that analytic philosophy does employ jargon, the technical language of (some) analytic philosophy is definable either in ordinary language, or else in some formal language. The contention is that the jargon of continental philosophy is not similarly definable, and that all the attempted definitions make reference to empty terms, and hence that the continental enterprise is based on nonsense, and, as such, bankrupt.

Like what? Can you give examples of words which you see as undefinable?

The problem with a lot of this is that when Heidegger wrote being and time, he found himself in a situation where he actually needed to invent words because he started looking at the world in a completely new way. You can't deny the narcissistic tendency to take that foreward a notch. In France, to be an intellectual is a very high social position. The more words you make up, the more cultural capital you are deemed to emit. Incentive.

But that's besides the point. These works can be understood, it's just that the words employed can be used in so many different scenarios, it is hard to work out exactly how much of it they use. For example, the word "intentionality" just means directing your consciousness at something. But because that's such a huge part of ourselves, it's almost impossible to summon the enormity of the word into play each time.

Also, you have to remember that these guys are academics working in extremely inter disciplinary fields. They need the surrogate words as a sort of algebraic short hand.

[Hiero]

Hiero:



I might be tempted to answer your question when you answer the many I have asked you.

I don't see why that is relevant, this is a public debate not a private debate. I am generally interested in what you have read.

[berlitz23]

Is it feasible we could start a separate 'postmodern' thread soon?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


Can you give examples of words which you see as undefinable?

In fact the allegation is not that such terms cannot be explained, but that any such 'explanation' is only ever given in terms of yet more jargon, and then yet more to 'explain' that, and so on...


The problem with a lot of this is that when Heidegger wrote being and time, he found himself in a situation where he actually needed to invent words because he started looking at the world in a completely new way. You can't deny the narcissistic tendency to take that forward a notch. In France, to be an intellectual is a very high social position. The more words you make up, the more cultural capital you are deemed to emit. Incentive.

The problem is, as I argued at length above, that theorists have been doing this since ancient Greek times so that they can derive truths about reality from thought alone (and from a distortion of language -- for example, turning the verb 'to be' into 'Being' -- as Marx, too, pointed out), which they then impose on nature dogmatically.

I explained why they do this, and I pointed out that the reason why so many others fall for this ploy is that the ideas of the ruling class are in every age those of the ruling class.

I did this here (on this very page!):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1590595&postcount=66

No less so here.

Now, if you reject to what I said, let's hear your objections.

------------------

Hiero:


I don't see why that is relevant, this is a public debate not a private debate. I am generally interested in what you have read.

1) I raised these questions directed at you in public, too.

2) Your 'general interest' has so far led you too ignoring me, advising others to ignore me, and calling me names.

I can do without your 'interest'.

-----------------------------

Berlitz:


Is it feasible we could start a separate 'postmodern' thread soon?

In fact, a whole new Group has been set up so that those with a desire to do so can construct meaningless, jargon-bound sentences to their hearts' content - and they will be left alone while they do it:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=270

[ZeroNowhere]

the ideas of the ruling class are in every age those of the ruling class.You perhaps mistyped here? Because I'm quite sure that's not much of an explanation.

[RHIZOMES]

I'm with Chomsky.

As an interesting sidenote, i'm sorta with Chomsky too:


http://cognet.mit.edu/library/books/chomsky/chomsky/5/8.html

One can learn a lot from history, as from life, as long as it avoids the pretentious tomfoolery required by intellectuals for career and power reasons. Take Foucault, whom you mention. With enough effort, one can extract from his writings some interesting insights and observations, peeling away the framework of obfuscation that is required for respectability in the strange world of intellectuals, which takes on extreme forms in the weird culture of postwar Paris. Foucault is unusual among Paris intellectuals in that at least something is left when one peels this away. (15 Dec. 1992)

:rolleyes:

[Post-Something]

Post-Something:



In fact the allegation is not that such terms cannot be explained, but that any such 'explanation' is only ever given in terms of yet more jargon, and then yet more to 'explain' that, and so on...



The problem is, as I argued at length above, that theorists have been doing this since ancient Greek times so that they can derive truths about reality from thought alone (and from a distortion of language -- for example, turning the verb 'to be' into 'Being' -- as Marx, too, pointed out), which they then impose on nature dogmatically.

I explained why they do this, and I pointed out that the reason why so many others fall for this ploy is that the ideas of the ruling class are in every age those of the ruling class.

I did this here (on this very page!):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1590595&postcount=66

No less so here.

Now, if you reject to what I said, let's hear your objections.

Again, this seems like an allegation thats doomed to fail unless you specify which words, but ok, I'll try a couple of frequently used ones, and you point out where you disagree:

Discourse: Refers to a type of language associated with an institution, and includes the ideas and statements which express an institutions values

Genealogy: A process of analysing and uncovering the historical relationship between truth, knowledge and power.

Ideology: A system of ideas held by a particular group within a culture, and which represent their interests, and practices whereby such groups attempt to pass these meanings and values off as universal (aplicable to all humanity).

Institution: a set of relatively long lasting and stable social relationships between people, or between people and objects.

Modernity: Refers to a period in history which is usually said to have began around the Enlightenment. It's characterized by scientific rationality, development of capitalism, education, surveillance, urbanism, atheism etc.

Subjectivity: A term that replaces the traditional notion of consciousness, wherby we think of individuals as self governing, and instead look at ourselves as a product of discourses, ideologies and institutions.

If theres anything you think isn't well defined, I'll try my best to make it clearer.

[Hyacinth]

Again, this seems like an allegation thats doomed to fail unless you specify which words, but ok, I'll try a couple of frequently used ones, and you point out where you disagree:

Discourse: Refers to a type of language associated with an institution, and includes the ideas and statements which express an institutions values

Genealogy: A process of analysing and uncovering the historical relationship between truth, knowledge and power.

Ideology: A system of ideas held by a particular group within a culture, and which represent their interests, and practices whereby such groups attempt to pass these meanings and values off as universal (aplicable to all humanity).

Institution: a set of relatively long lasting and stable social relationships between people, or between people and objects.

Modernity: Refers to a period in history which is usually said to have began around the Enlightenment. It's characterized by scientific rationality, development of capitalism, education, surveillance, urbanism, atheism etc.

Subjectivity: A term that replaces the traditional notion of consciousness, wherby we think of individuals as self governing, and instead look at ourselves as a product of discourses, ideologies and institutions.

If theres anything you think isn't well defined, I'll try my best to make it clearer.
These aren't the terms that issue is taken with; these terms are quite useful technical terms employed by sociology, and which are, as you have well illustrated, perfectly comprehensible.

The sort of jargon that is suspect is the likes of that of, say, Heidegger, with his "Being", "Nothing", etc.

Or the jargon used in this paragraph by kalu:

The point about Saussure's doctrine is that where he would say a sign* is a unified signifier and signified, Derrida is extending and "deconstructing" Saussure's point by saying that if the signifier is determined within a structure of differences (a signifier is composed of arbitrary phonemes), then that means the word is defined as a relation of difference, and its meaning is endlessly deferred, thus Derrida's neologism "differance."

As for "under erasure", that just refers to the crossing out of a transcendental signified, ie. Heidegger's Being. The crossing out signifies that the word isn't completely erased (we "forget" it ever existed). Derrida enacts this procedure in order to avoid elevating a transcendental signified as his "primordial" concept. He continually puts terms he uses under erasure; so as Spivak says, in one work all he'll be talking about is differance, then in the next comes "supplement" which is a similar concept, and from there he creates a chain of terms, each one constantly put under erasure. He does this to recognize the itinerary of a "metaphysics of presence" in his own work.
In such a way as not to make it subject to the criticism brought up by Rosa that its treatments of the meaning of terms destroys the unity of the proposition, and hence is clearly an inadequate account of meaning.

[Hyacinth]

I'm just reading the article on wikipedia on différance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff%C3%A9rance), and I cannot help be struck by how (inasmuch as what Derrida is saying is comprehensible) when he says something right it is trivial, and the rest is based on rather elementary errors.

[T]he word "house" derives its meaning more as a function of how it differs from "shed", "mansion", "hotel", "building", "hovel", "hours", "hows", "horse", etc. etc., than how the word "house" may be tied to a certain image of a traditional house (i.e. the relationship between signifier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signifier) and signified (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signified)).Insofar as the meaning of a word is its use in the language, then it isn't that the word derives its meaning from how it functions (how it is used), but rather that this simply is its meaning. To then go on to point to the differences in use between a class of related terms is only to point to the fact that while they have a related meaning, their meaning isn't the same inasmuch as their use isn't quite the same.

Now, we might explain the meaning of "house" by illustrating how its use differs from other related terms as examples of how it is not used, but it is quite a leap to go from this to the claim that we give explanatory priority to these sorts of explanations, as opposed to ostensive explanations—i.e., giving the meaning of the term by employing an object that it is used to refer to as a sample in a definition. Take "house", for example, we might give it by pointing to a house, and we can further elaborate the distinction between it and related terms by pointing to the objects which we refer to by those terms to contrast their meaning with that of "house". A traditional house, or an image thereof, can serve a role in an ostensive definition of "house".


Thus, complete meaning is always postponed in language; there is never a moment when meaning is complete and total. A simple example would consist of looking up a given word in a dictionary, then proceeding to look up up the words found in that word's definition, etc., and such a process would never end. Roland Barthes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes) describes this in his essay "Death of the Author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author)." A language is a self-contained relationship between various signifiers. A symbol is defined by its relation to other symbols, and yet those other symbols are only different from it inasmuch as they have a different relation to each other than it does. But then, what are they in themselves? Where is this elusive "meaning" in which they are supposed to terminate?(a) dictionary definitions are not the only, and often not even the best, means by which we can give the meaning of a term;
(b) what exactly is this 'complete' or 'total' meaning suppose to consist in? if I give you the meaning of a "house" by an ostensive explanation, or—if you are the speaker of another language, say Germany—by "'house' means 'Haus'", and this allows you to get along in the language, what is it that my explanation of meaning is missing? how is it incomplete?
(c) the complaint Derrida has seems misguided: if he still insists that we have no given him the 'complete' meaning, that the explanation given is deficient, it would be akin to someone complaining that we have not given them the complete rules for Chess unless we have given him all the combinatorial possibilities of the pieces; and why is it that, if Derrida doesn't understand the term from our explanation, that it is our explanation that is defective, and not Derrida's understanding?
(d) in treating meaning this way it strikes me as though Derrida is reifying it, as though somehow a word has a meaning independent of its place in language—which makes about as much sense as as pawn having a rule for its use independent of Chess; or is Derrida trying to make the point that the term has no meaning outside of its place in language? if so, fine, it is a point that has been stated by others (in various ways), and much more clearly at that.

Reading the rest of the article certainly didn't help clarify the sense, or even significance (in the sense of why we should care about this distinction Derrida is drawing), of différance.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero:


You perhaps mistyped here? Because I'm quite sure that's not much of an explanation.

Indeed there is; I typed it in rather hurry before I had to go out. It should of course read:


The ruling ideas are in every age those of the ruling class.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something, thanks for the list, but I think Hyacinth has said more-or-less what I would have said.

[Post-Something]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm still trying to get my head round this, I'll do some more reading..

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Begin here:

Edwards, P. (2004), Heidegger's Confusions (Prometheus Books).

[kalu]

I'm not familiar with either (I only really started seriously looking into critical theory/poststructuralism/etc due to an excellent Uni paper I took this semester with a ex-SWP Marxist lecturer explaining it all), but I looked up political agonism and it just sounds like an abandonment of proletarian class struggle to me (from the little I read). Would you be able to elaborate on why it's exciting?

Good point, I don't think political agonism is a replacement for the class struggle (though many political agonists do seem to have transitioned from Marxism). I do think, however, that it can be combined with class struggle, because it challenges liberalism. As a radical, I seek, as Hargreaves put it in an "animal rights and socialism" thread, a much fuller emancipation than simply "workers of the world, unite!" This requires a comprehensive political critique of different forms of oppression, a critique which agonism is apart of. Capitalism intersects with liberalism, but how the relationship is articulated I do not yet know.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kalu:


This requires a comprehensive political critique of different forms of oppression, a critique which agonism is apart of. Capitalism intersects with liberalism, but how the relationship is articulated I do not yet know.

But, all we get from the like of Derrida & Co is obfuscation, not clarity.

[Hyacinth]

Good point, I don't think political agonism is a replacement for the class struggle (though many political agonists do seem to have transitioned from Marxism). I do think, however, that it can be combined with class struggle, because it challenges liberalism. As a radical, I seek, as Hargreaves put it in an "animal rights and socialism" thread, a much fuller emancipation than simply "workers of the world, unite!" This requires a comprehensive political critique of different forms of oppression, a critique which agonism is apart of. Capitalism intersects with liberalism, but how the relationship is articulated I do not yet know.
This is much more interesting, if you'll permit me to jump in.

The challenge agonism provides against liberalism (other than its emphasis on the fact that certain antagonistic relationships are ineliminable; a point also made by historical materialism, among other theories, hence hardly novel) strikes me as quite weak, at best, and at worst as playing right into the hands of the ruling class. After all, why ought we—as the agonists suggest—transition from regarding certain opponents as enemies to regarding them as antagonists (in the technical language of agonist theory: where the former are to be eliminated, and the latter are suppose to be respected and their disagreement with us regarded as falling within acceptable boundaries)?

I could see something to the view that disagreements would still persist under communism—I don't think anyone imagined they wouldn't—and hence perhaps there is some contribution agonist thought has to make to how we are to convince of and structure communist society. But it doesn't strike me as being able to supplant, or even inform class struggle.

Though, perhaps I'm too hasty in saying that: there might be a role for agonistic conceptions of democracy to play within the class struggle movement itself. There is, after all, far too much sectarianism among the left, such that we spend more time fighting one another than we do the enemy. Though, the realization that this is self-defeating and in need of some remedy hardly requires agonism.

[Hyacinth]

Also—an addendum—the historical failure of Marxists to pay sufficient attention to forms of oppression apart from class oppression (preferring instead to vaguely maintain that they somehow supervene upon class oppression) does not imply that a materialist understanding of oppression is defective. Only that thus far we haven't developed a comprehensive materialist account of how these forms of oppression all interact with one another; and, most importantly—as I still think it the case that class oppression has causal priority—how other forms of oppression depend upon and interact with class oppression, and why eliminating the latter is, if not a sufficient, then at least necessary for the elimination of the former. (Certain analytic feminists have, IMO, done excellent work on these issues)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^As I am sure you will agree, Hyacinth, the historical materialist analysis of class society opens up the space within which an explanation may be given of the many forms of oppression there are.

[blake 3:17]

So are Noddy books.

I love Blyton!

[Post-Something]

I'm just reading the article on wikipedia on différance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diff%C3%A9rance), and I cannot help be struck by how (inasmuch as what Derrida is saying is comprehensible) when he says something right it is trivial, and the rest is based on rather elementary errors.
Insofar as the meaning of a word is its use in the language, then it isn't that the word derives its meaning from how it functions (how it is used), but rather that this simply is its meaning. To then go on to point to the differences in use between a class of related terms is only to point to the fact that while they have a related meaning, their meaning isn't the same inasmuch as their use isn't quite the same.

Now, we might explain the meaning of "house" by illustrating how its use differs from other related terms as examples of how it is not used, but it is quite a leap to go from this to the claim that we give explanatory priority to these sorts of explanations, as opposed to ostensive explanations—i.e., giving the meaning of the term by employing an object that it is used to refer to as a sample in a definition. Take "house", for example, we might give it by pointing to a house, and we can further elaborate the distinction between it and related terms by pointing to the objects which we refer to by those terms to contrast their meaning with that of "house". A traditional house, or an image thereof, can serve a role in an ostensive definition of "house".

(a) dictionary definitions are not the only, and often not even the best, means by which we can give the meaning of a term;
(b) what exactly is this 'complete' or 'total' meaning suppose to consist in? if I give you the meaning of a "house" by an ostensive explanation, or—if you are the speaker of another language, say Germany—by "'house' means 'Haus'", and this allows you to get along in the language, what is it that my explanation of meaning is missing? how is it incomplete?
(c) the complaint Derrida has seems misguided: if he still insists that we have no given him the 'complete' meaning, that the explanation given is deficient, it would be akin to someone complaining that we have not given them the complete rules for Chess unless we have given him all the combinatorial possibilities of the pieces; and why is it that, if Derrida doesn't understand the term from our explanation, that it is our explanation that is defective, and not Derrida's understanding?
(d) in treating meaning this way it strikes me as though Derrida is reifying it, as though somehow a word has a meaning independent of its place in language—which makes about as much sense as as pawn having a rule for its use independent of Chess; or is Derrida trying to make the point that the term has no meaning outside of its place in language? if so, fine, it is a point that has been stated by others (in various ways), and much more clearly at that.

Reading the rest of the article certainly didn't help clarify the sense, or even significance (in the sense of why we should care about this distinction Derrida is drawing), of différance.

I think what Derrida is talking about here is in reference to the Logos. The thing that metaphysicians have been looking for to define in relation to everything else. Like, Plato had ideal forms, Augustine had the trinity, Descarted had the cogito, Locke had natural laws, Hegel had Idea, and Kant even had it as the self. All there as sort of central models by which we could replicate and measure out certain aspects of our life in relation to. Derrida argues that every metaphysician is searching for a Logos, and that's what his philosophy is against. The idea that you can actually pinpoint this point of reference, because he argues that everything is structurally wayless.

But Differance, I think, is one of his main reasons for taking this stance. Differance is sort of a way of showing how the Logos will always be deffered, how we can never reach it. How there will be no final meaning about anything, how everything is just one big inter relational mess, and how there is no way of really judging them from one central standpoint. Differance is kind of like being in a traffic jam, and when it finally clears up, there is another one just ahead. Meaning is always deffered, because there is no stable entity to which the signifiers refer back to.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


But Differance, I think, is one of his main reasons for taking this stance. Differance is sort of a way of showing how the Logos will always be deffered, how we can never reach it. How there will be no final meaning about anything, how everything is just one big inter relational mess, and how there is no way of really judging them from one central standpoint. Differance is kind of like being in a traffic jam, and when it finally clears up, there is another one just ahead. Meaning is always deffered, because there is no stable entity to which the signifiers refer back to.

As I have already pointed out, if this is so, then not even Derrida will be able to understand what he himself has written!

On the other hand, of we understand this:


How there will be no final meaning about anything, how everything is just one big inter relational mess, and how there is no way of really judging them from one central standpoint. Differance is kind of like being in a traffic jam, and when it finally clears up, there is another one just ahead. Meaning is always deffered, because there is no stable entity to which the signifiers refer back to

then what it says must be false -- since we will have grasped Derrida meaning!

So, if we can't understand Derrida, we can't agree with him, but if we do understand Derrida we have to disagree with him!

Either way, we can't agree with him.

We should perhaps rename this 'theory', "Post-Sanity".

[Post-Something]

Post-Something:



As I have already pointed out, if this is so, then not even Derrida will be able to understand what he himself has written!

On the other hand, of we understand this:



then what it says must be false -- since we will have grasped Derrida meaning!

So, if we can't understand Derrida, we can't agree with him, but if we do understand Derrida we have to disagree with him!

Either way, we can't agree with him.

We should perhaps rename this 'theory', "Post-Sanity".

I think I disagree with you here. Just because there isn't a Logos, or that Meaning in the grand sense with a capital M is always defered, doesn't mean that language is incomprehensible, it just means that it can't refer us back to any center.

For example, if I have a list of binary, ie 100110101, it doesn't matter what the ultimate goal of it is, as long as there is some computer to interpret it. All it means is that this information that we do get, cannot be valued in the same way, because we have no stable feature with which to stand it against.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


I think I disagree with you here. Just because there isn't a Logos, or that Meaning in the grand sense with a capital M is always defered, doesn't mean that language is incomprehensible, it just means that it can't refer us back to any center.

Then you understand my meaning -- in which case, Derrida is wrong.

Hence, someone, in the entire history of humanity, namely you, has succeeded in grasping a meaning, namely here.

On the other hand, of you do not understand my meaning, you can't disagree with me.


For example, if I have a list of binary, ie 100110101, it doesn't matter what the ultimate goal of it is, as long as there is some computer to interpret it. All it means is that this information that we do get, cannot be valued in the same way, because we have no stable feature with which to stand it against.

If I understand your meaning, then Derrida is wrong yet again.

So, someone, in the entire history of humanity, namely you, has succeeded in communicating a meaning, namely here.

On the other hand, if you failed to communicate your meaning, may I suggest you try again?

Of course, if you do try again, then that will suggest you understand my meaning again, and so shouldn't try again for fear you will only confirm that you have refuted Derrida once more...

As Wittgenstein noted: ordinary language is alright as it is. When you try to undermine it, it has nasty habit of hitting back.

[Post-Something]

But I'm not talking about all these little meanings, I'm talking about the meaning which everything refers back to. That doesn't exist. Of course words correspond to actions in the real word, and these change slightly over time, but what is at stake here is meaning in the much larger sense.

For example, you've read Hegel, and his ideas on history, and how everything is almost subservient to it and spirit. I'm talking about that kind of relation. Derrida is saying that all Metaphysics presumes some kind of over arching meaning like this, and this is what he is talking about.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


But I'm not talking about all these little meanings, I'm talking about the meaning which everything refers back to. That doesn't exist. Of course words correspond to actions in the real word, and these change slightly over time, but what is at stake here is meaning in the much larger sense.

But, you have yet to show that there is such a 'meaning' -- or, indeed that "meaning" is a referring expression, to begin with.


For example, you've read Hegel, and his ideas on history, and how everything is almost subservient to it and spirit. I'm talking about that kind of relation. Derrida is saying that all Metaphysics presumes some kind of over arching meaning like this, and this is what he is talking about.

Well, I am surprised you are reffering to that mystic to help you out, since it is even less clear what Hegel is banging on about.

[Post-Something]

Post-Something:



But, you have yet to show that there is such a 'meaning' -- or, indeed that "meaning" is a referring expression, to begin with.

I'm using meaning as a surrogate term for any Logos that claims to explain all other phenomena, precisely because they claim to give a dimension of meaning to everything in existence. Examples I've given have been Plato, Augustine, Locke etc, all listed above.

When Plato says that there are ideal forms, he is saying that there is another way that we can look at the world and ourselves, a more meaningful way.


Well, I am surprised you are reffering to that mystic to help you out, since it is even less clear what Hegel is banging on about.

It was just an example.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Post-Something:


I'm using meaning as a surrogate term for any Logos that claims to explain all other phenomena, precisely because they claim to give a dimension of meaning to everything in existence. Examples I've given have been Plato, Augustine, Locke etc, all listed above.

This is no help either, since, as we predicted, you have to refer us to yet more jargon to try to 'explain' the last batch of jargon.


When Plato says that there are ideal forms, he is saying that there is another way that we can look at the world and ourselves, a more meaningful way.

Indeed, but we can do without Derrida here, with his incomprehensible jargon.

Here's how to debunk this sort of non-sense:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/self-t105849/index.html?p=1408653#post1408653

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1596520&postcount=20


It was just an example.

But, all your examples come from the jargon-ridden world of ruling-class hacks -- whom Derrida was only too happy to emulate, with a priori dogmatic theses of his own.